


Insomnia

by samchandler1986



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Blood and Injury, Brotp, Canon Compliant, Gen, Mystery, Outer Space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 19:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 30,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3862027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samchandler1986/pseuds/samchandler1986
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was meant to be a simple site-seeing trip to a space station. Instead, the Doctor and Clara find themselves drawn into the search for the kidnapped ward of a criminal faction. <br/>Set between Flatline and In the Forest of the Night, canon-compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Insomnia

_Clara sometimes asks me if I dream. “Of course I dream,” I tell her._

_Everybody dreams._

_“But what do you dream_ about _?” she'll ask._

_“The same thing everybody dreams about,” I tell her. “I dream about where I'm going.”_

* * *

 

When there are humans aboard, proper old-fashioned Earth ones, the TARDIS will adopt a twenty-four hour clock. She’ll dim the lights of the console room and subtly change the hum and sigh of her power circuits to let them know it is night-time. Otherwise they can forget about sleep, forget about meal-times and all the other meaningless little human rituals he likes to tease them about. Like brushing their teeth or eating their breakfast. They need that circadian clock to tick-tick onwards, just like it does on planet Earth, or they become unaccountably grumpy and frankly no fun to have around.

Time Lords don’t need to brush their teeth (although he sometimes maintains the habit, liking the minty froth of human toothpaste). They don’t need regular breakfast, and they don’t need sleep. Not like humans do. He can go for days without sleep if there’s a need. Maybe even weeks.

“The point I’m trying to make here,” he says aloud to the darkened control room, “Is that _this_ is unnecessary.”

The TARDIS deigns not to respond, the dull click and whirr of her idling console the only sound. The lights remain stubbornly low. He sits back in his armchair for a moment, closes his book with a snap.

“Perhaps I’ll do some repairs then. About time I made a start on those drive-stacks, eh?” He descends to the central console slowly, listening to her gentle hum. He comes to rest at her dashboard, staring down at the buttons and handles of her interface as if he doesn’t know every inch of her better than the backs of these still-new hands.

A sigh. “I know what you’re trying to do, you know.”

He can’t visit Clara, not at this moment. Things between her and Danny are human and complicated, bound up in the web of lies she’s spinning. He’s more scared than he cares to admit that one more push and she’ll walk out of his TARDIS for good. Turning up in her bedroom if Danny is at her flat might give rather the wrong impression. Right now, her marking books are on his side-table, forgotten in a hurry when she last left the TARDIS. When she realises they’re missing, she’ll ring and provide a welcome distraction. Or some kind of a distraction at any rate.

Hauling his toolbox downstairs, he sets about trying to make good the faulty stacks. For a while he makes good progress, re-routing circuits to make safe the removal of her loose units, but the light seems to grow steadily brighter. After a while his eyes start to burn and the sonic screwdriver slips as he blinks away stars. A circuit shorts, showering sparks and burning his fingers. He yelps, dropping the screwdriver and sucking the burnt digits for an angry second.

“Now, what did you do that for?” he grumbles, surveying the damage. His fingers are the only lasting harm but her circuits are still harshly bright. Fumbling for his fallen screwdriver, he admits defeat. “Forty-winks,” he barters, “Just a little cat-nap, and then you’ll stop this nonsense?”

She is inscrutable as always, although when he steps out of the control room and tries a few doors at random his bedroom has been reshuffled to behind all of them. It belongs to this incarnation alone, a new creation that sprang into being when he reformed the control room, and hasn’t seen much usage. The candy-stripe pyjamas on the pillow are a new touch and his mouth quirks at the sight of them, remembering a day spent saving the world and sword-fighting in something rather similar.

“Nice try,” he offers. They’re still not quite right for this body. He folds them back into the antique drawers and takes of his boots before lying down on the bed. The only sop to comfort he’ll allow. “A nap,” he reiterates. “That’s all.”

He can’t remember the last time he slept in a bed. Can’t remember the last time he fell asleep anywhere other than his armchair in the console room, lulled by the soft hum of the living ship.

He closes his eyes.

_And Trenzalore unfolds in his vision, the battlefield aflame. In his mind’s eye, the fires of the different war are burning, all of time and space on fire._

_“No,” he croaks, “No, I didn’t.”_

“I didn’t.”

He opens his eyes, breathing hard, hearts hammering. “Well that went well,” he snarls, “Refreshing, I’d call it. I feel so much better now.”

Adrenalin has pushed away the exhaustion, at least for a while, and the TARDIS knows when he’s past the point of argument. From outside her doors, he can hear the telephone ringing.

“That’s right,” he mutters as he hurries across the control room, “Appeal to a higher authority. I don’t imagine that’ll do you any good either.”

He’s never quite sure how the TARDIS synchronises Clara’s calls, given that he’s billions of miles and quite often hundreds of years away from her. Perhaps the TARDIS simply knows how many hours have passed for Clara between stepping out through the front doors and making the call. Maybe she simply patches through the call at the matching point in his personal time-stream. Or, more likely he thinks, she connects the calls through when she thinks he most needs them.

He opens the front door, taking just a moment to marvel at the ringed gas-giant the TARDIS is currently parked in orbit above, and lifts the receiver.

“Doctor! Are you there?”

“That’s an interesting question,” he answers, “I’m certainly somewhere. As to whether it’s _there_ −”

 “You’re bored, then.” It isn’t a question.

“What makes you say that?”

“Because if there was something interesting going on, you’d answer the ‘phone with a simple hello instead of a riddle.”

He pulls the telephone back into the control room, wrestling with the cable all the way back to the console. “Well, having worked that out already, I suppose you must also have a solution for my terrible boredom?”

The co-ordinates to her flat are already locked into the flight-system; he flicks the handle to send the TARDIS into the vortex before she’s even made her reply.

“Course I do. Come and pick me up and I might even tell you what it is.”

The TARDIS lands with its customary solid _thump_ and the line goes dead. Her mobile is still in hand as she throws open the doors, smiling.

“It had better be good,” he warns, walking past her to replace the telephone.

“Space station,” she replies, leaning back against the console to better watch his reaction. “I have never been on a proper, border of the galaxy, melting pot of the universe space station.”

“That’s an easy one to remedy. Are you thinking edge of the human frontier, or something a bit more…alien?”

He grins his shark’s smile, awaiting her answer. 


	2. Alien Experience

Deresta IV is a Gateway port, a long way from any reputable sector of space and a jumping off point into the unknown. For once, he parks the TARDIS in an appropriate berth, not wanting some desperate chancer or clever smuggler that half-recognises her value to make off with his ship. Or so he tells Clara.

“Could that really happen?” she asks as he locks the TARDIS doors.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. That’s what I like about this place. The Gateway from here branches out across a thousand galaxies, most of them unmapped. You get all sorts of people, all sorts of tech. Maybe even some that would recognise the TARDIS for what she is.”

Clara gives the blue box a reassuring pat before turning to follow him across the launch-pad. “What’s a Gateway?”

 “A network of wormholes. The people that made them are long dead, but the beacons they built to hold open the Gates have lasted for over ten thousand years.” He punches the lift-call button. “Actually, I went and met them once. Terribly boring people. But they were good engineers.”

The lift arrives, a prosaic capsule that wouldn’t look out of place in a twentieth century office block. “No transporters?” she jokes.

“Why disassemble yourself and have them put you back together as someone new when you don’t have to?” he returns darkly.

She gives him a shrewd look. “Are we still talking about transporters here?” He is spared having to answer as the doors open, revealing the station concourse. The vaulted roof is transparent, allowing those beneath to look up into the heart of the Deresta Nebula. It’s a sight he’s seen many times before and still it never fails to move him. Clara looks up and gasps, to his satisfaction. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Yes. A luminous hyper-giant star, surrounded by super-heated gas. They call her Deresta. She That Burns. There’s an observation deck, if you want to take a closer look.”

Clara nods. “Good choice, Doctor.”

“I try my best.”

The concourse itself is a seething mass of people. The old shop units, built into the walls of the station, showcase expensive looking ship parts, fine clothes and beautiful trinkets from beyond the Gate. Less illustrious traders spill out onto the boulevard between them; what was once a straight route through the station now a labyrinthine twist of narrow lanes. A dozen shopkeepers are calling out to the crowds, the background chatter of a thousand voices a constant hubbub. No two people that push past in the opposite direction are alike, and not one of them is human. The press of bodies is such that Clara falls behind, losing sight of the Doctor’s grey head bobbing in the crowd before her. She stops, shunted gently sideways by the aliens moving past. Her heels meet the counter of a food stall wafting clouds of cinnamon scented steam into the air, and she tries to spot him in the sea of people.

Long fingers touch briefly on her wrist. He is at her side again, scowling at her. “Try not to wander off. It’s a busy station.”

“I wasn’t wandering, _you_ were storming ahead,” she returns, hiding the rush of relief.

“At least you won’t be hard to find, I suppose. Must be the only human within a thousand light-years of here.”

She points. “Except for that guy.”

“What?” He tries to see who she can possibly mean, as she returns a wave from across the boulevard.

“Over there,” she says, “Sat at the table by that... coffee-shop looking place.”

He sighs deeply. “That _is_ a coffee shop. Trust you to manage to find the only human, in the only human-like store, on my totally alien experience.”

“You’ve said it yourself before Doctor, we _do_ get everywhere.”

“Yes. Like rats.” 

“Oi,” she admonishes, flicking his shoulder. “Why is he waving at us anyway? Does he know you?”

 “Possibly. Or you. Maybe we’re meeting in the wrong order, time-lines out of synch. Or maybe he’s just seen the only other human being in a thousand light-years, and can’t resist saying hello. You’re a personable plague, after all. Ouch!” Her second flick is distinctly harder than the first.

“Only one way to find out?” she suggests, meeting his eyes with an excited smile he can’t help but return.

“I suppose so.”

It takes a minute to force their way across the boulevard; by the time they enter the relative calm of the coffee-shop courtyard the man has pulled up two chairs to his table. He stands as they pick their way through a mess of furniture designed to suit customers with varying numbers of limbs; bows deeply when they finally reach him. His long brown coat doesn’t quite cover the gun holstered at his right hip.

“Captain Shaula Antares at your service.”

The Doctor returns the bow somewhat stiffly, Clara hastening to follow suit. “The Doctor and Clara at yours.”

“I hope I haven’t disturbed you. It’s so unusual to see another human face out here, I thought you might both like a coffee.” He gestures to the empty seats.

“Oh, I’m not hu−”

“−here to rush,” Clara cuts in, before the Doctor can completed his sentence. “You’re not here to rush, are you Doctor?” She takes one of the offered seats, holding his scowl for a moment with a steely look of her own.

“Apparently not,” he replies, taking his own seat with a slightly more theatrical swoop of his coat than is strictly called for.

Antares presses a few buttons moulded into the centre of the table and a steaming cafetiere shimmers into existence, complete with two empty cups. The Doctor watches the stranger make a show of pouring their coffees carefully. Outwardly, Antares appears to be a handsome man just entering middle-age. He has a stocky broad-shouldered kind of build that looks earned through deeds in the field rather than hours in the gym. If the Doctor was a betting man he’d put money on ex-military.

_Perhaps Clara has a type after all_ , he thinks, a little sourly.

“What _does_ bring you to Deresta?” Antares asks pleasantly, pushing their cups across the table. There is a tiny tattoo on his left wrist, almost covered by his shirt sleeve. Now the Doctor’s interest is piqued; this stranger is suspicious of their presence here and in too much of a rush to question them with more subtlety. _What’s he so afraid of?_

“Sight-seeing mostly,” Clara replies. Catching an almost imperceptible nod from the Doctor she continues honestly. “I’d never seen a real space-station before so he bought me here to take a look.”

“Really? Hell of a long way to come just to see a space-station. There are nicer examples back near the Midian cluster too. You know, without all the… free-traders.” He gestures at the surrounding market, brown eyes locked on blue, daring the Doctor to challenge him.

The Doctor blinks. He long ago tired of the subtle approach. Takes too long. “I can see you’re a clever man Captain Antares,” he counters, pulling out the psychic paper. “This is who we really are.”

Antares reads the proffered slip, mouth compressing into a thin line. “I didn’t think the Chapter would let House Scorpii sort this out for themselves. Are you special missions, then?”

Under the table, the Doctor deftly passes the slip of paper on to Clara. “Something like that.”

She turns the psychic paper over in her lap, taking a sip of coffee as chance to read what the Doctor has sent.

_Indentured servant of criminal syndicate_ , reads the paper in rather elaborate cursive, _Good choice Clara._

Clearly unhappy, Antares leans in towards them. “How much do you already know?” he asks quietly.

“Everything,” replies the Doctor evenly, “I’m interested in how much you think _you_ know.” It’s an old trick, but one the Doctor plays well, aided by the psychic paper.

Antares grimaces for a moment, apparently weighing up his options. “There were only five of us that knew her true identity. And three of those perished when she vanished.”

“I’m not interested in your excuses, Captain. Just the facts.” He can see Clara watching him intently, wondering if he bluffs on a bad hand or with no cards at all. Or perhaps, these days, she suspects him of an elaborate set-up. One where he knew Antares was here all along; where this seemingly random encounter is all part of some grander scheme.

_If only_ , he thinks.

Antares licks his lips nervously, eyes darting between the two of them, looking for a way out. Finding none. “Alya was a ward of Scorpii, a noble daughter of House Serpentis.” He barely moves his lips, speaking urgently to Clara. Her benign concern is apparently easier on a strained temper than the Doctor’s cold sneer. “She grew up in the walls of our palaces, called the Scorpius brood her sistren. I swear, none of them would have harmed a hair on her head. And even if they _had_ learned her true identity somehow, they would’ve realised she’s the reason for eight years of peace after decades of bloodshed. She’s why Serpentis ended the bombing campaigns, the attacks on our merchant navy. And the assassinations...”

“You think she was kidnapped rather than murdered,” prompts the Doctor.

Antares nods. “A week ago. And whoever did it killed the others who knew what she really was.”

The Doctor raises an impressive eyebrow. “But not you. A suspicious man might think that makes you the prime suspect.”

“My alibi is watertight,” replies Antares, jaw so tense he can barely choke the words out. “But you know that, or I’d already be dead.”

“Perhaps. I’d find it rather difficult to interrogate a corpse though, wouldn’t I?”

“Doctor,” Clara growls in warning.

He smiles lightning fast, ostensibly back-tracking but frankly only enhancing his menace. “Sorry. Do go on. You were about to tell me why you think they’d bother taking a valuable hostage away from the Scorpius system and through the Gateway.”

Antares almost certainly wasn’t. “I… I haven’t worked out why,” he admits. “It doesn’t make any sense. But I am certain she was here, two days ago. There were at least three men accompanying her, maybe five. They took a ship through to Hielo.”

The Doctor hisses between his teeth. “And from there, who knows?”

“I intend to find out.”

The Doctor gives him a shrewd look. “I’ll bet you do.” He sits back in his chair. “I can help you, Captain. I’d like to help you. But only if you take your hand off the triphasic detonator in your pocket.”

Antares makes an involuntary noise of shock, the hand he has slipped into his pocket jerking slightly before he regains his composure. “I’m sorry,” he says, again more to Clara than the Doctor, “But I’ve come too far already. If the Chapter Head finds out−”

“We’re not interested in telling tales to the Chapter Head. Go on. Just take your hand off the detonator. And then I can help you. I promise.”

 The hubbub of the station all around them fills the silence as Antares makes his decision. Slowly he draws out his hand, something spherical in his white-knuckled grip. He opens his hand very gently to reveal the compact device and then yelps in horror as the Doctor plucks it from his palm and tosses it casually into the air. As if it is nothing more than a toy.

Antares shields his face with his arms instinctively, knowing his actions are useless in the event of an undirected detonation. The little black ball of mechanised destruction falls back into Time Lord’s outstretched hand, and precisely nothing happens.

“How?” he gasps, unfolding his arms, breathing hard.

From his own pocket the Doctor produces the sonic screwdriver for scrutiny. “Interesting fact about those detonators. Very sensitive to ultra-sonic disruption. Almost as if someone designed them that way.”

“You aren’t _really_ agents of the Chapter Head at all, are you?” Antares breathes.

“No,” says Clara firmly, “We definitely aren’t. And on that note, Doctor, a word?”

He makes a face, but follows her a little distance away from the ashen Antares. “What now?”

“Explain,” she says, as if it is obvious. She sighs at his blank look and elaborates: “How much you knew. And then how we can help.”

“I told you,” he replies, “Everything I knew on the psychic paper. I thought we were _past_ this now−?”

“No Doctor, we are not past it. We’re moving through it. Learning by doing. Okay. So, these… Houses are like what? Branches of a Mafia family?”

“Good analogy. Yes. Scorpius are one of the most successful. Serpentis have been trying to topple them for two hundred years. Antares is a servant of the House; did you see the little tattoo on his wrist?” She nods. “That’s a mark of his indentured servitude. Third-generation slave.”

Some of her anger drains at those words. “And they’ve sent him to find out who kidnapped Alya?”

“Yes. His loyalty is guaranteed and if he discovers anything compromising, Scorpius can have him put to death quietly. Because if Serpentis _do_ find out Alya is missing, possibly dead, they will resume open conflict. And then a lot of other people will die. I’d like to try and stop that. Make sense now?”

She nods again. “So do we take the TARDIS through the Gateway to find her, or can we fly direct?”

He gives her a calculating look. “Look, this could be a big job. Not just a few days away, we could be gone for weeks. Are you sure you’re up for that? I could drop you back home to PE now and give you a call when I’ve cracked this.”

“Shut up,” she returns, and his hearts lift despite himself, knowing that she is along for the ride. 


	3. They Always Come

“Are you snoozing?” she asks, incredulous.

It takes a moment for him to piece together the clues. Above him, clouds of green and purple stretch away, unfurling like accusatory fingers. Nebula above, protective sunglasses on his face. Lying on a lounger in the observation lounge of the Deresta station, warm and comfortable. “No,” he lies, “I was just enjoying the view.”

“Only I was saying, don’t you think the Captain will just do a runner? Rather than have us aboard?”

“No.” He settles himself back into the lounger, closing his eyes again.

She makes an inpatient noise. “That’s it? Just no?”

“Well, what do you want me to say?” he snaps, “No, I don’t think he’ll run away. He’s seen I can be useful after defusing that detonator. He needs to find Alya alive if he wants to save his own skin, and those of the rest of his House. I can help him do that.”

“ _We_ can help him,” she corrects.

He sits up on his elbows, lowers his sunglasses to meet her fierce expression. “Yes, of course, I’d forgotten. In case of emergency English homework assignments, I have a fully trained professional with me.”

She snorts, and he knows she sees right through him. “Who’s rattled your cage, Doctor?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’ve been spoiling for a fight since we got here. Has something else happened? Something I don’t know about?”

“No.” Silence. In the face of her oppressive listening he feels compelled to continue. “Oh, well if you _must_ know, it’s the TARDIS. Trying to get me to sleep a bit−No, stop that!”

She is a picture of kind concern, tinged with just a hint of confusion. “Stop what?”

“Making that face, all sad and wobbly. Makes you look like a jelly.”

She laughs at that, just a little. “No, it’s just…She might have a point. You don’t seem to be getting a lot of rest at the moment. Except, you know, when I’m asking you questions on the solar loungers.”

“Don’t be so cheeky.”

“Seriously, though.”

He growls with frustration and sits up properly, swinging his legs off the lounger. “Seriously, I’m _fine_. Thanks for asking, but I don’t need you two flapping over me, making a fuss…”

She raises her hands in mock surrender. “Fine. No more on it from me. Assuming you can stay awake for the whole crew briefing.”

“Speaking of which, we had better go.”

“I know.” She gazes up at the stellar clouds, just a tad wistful about leaving. “It really is beautiful here, Doctor. Thank you.”

* * *

Antares is waiting for them in a briefing room on the dark side of the station. There is a small window looking out over the star field, scattered pin-pricks of cold light in the deep black. Clara moves to take a closer look, ignoring the Captain’s mistrustful stare.

“I put out the call as you instructed, sir.”

The Doctor winces. “Please. Don’t call me sir. Doctor will do fine, Captain.”

Antares looks mutinous, no doubt biting down on an acerbic reply. “I’m not sure anyone will respond. There’s been no message through the computer.”

“They’ll come.” _They always do._

Right on cue the door slides open to admit the first volunteer. He sees Clara glance away from the window and blink in surprise. The newcomer is not human, her skin an electric blue, but she is certainly human _oid_. Dispassionately, he can see that she is augmented, engineered into a vision of flawless beauty that transcends a number of species’ sense of aesthetics. She is perhaps taller than him by an inch or so, with a quiff of dark hair artfully arranged into something he might have worn himself a few lifetimes ago. She turns to him and smiles like sin; like the whole of her world is him, only him.

It might have worked, once upon a time. When he was younger perhaps and likely to be too distracted by her beauty to notice that her dark eyes are cold. Or perhaps when he was older, and so broken himself that he might not care. As it is, she only make him sad, reminding him somehow of River.

He extends his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m the Doctor.”

Her palm is warm, grip strong. “Elara,” she replies. For reasons best known only to the TARDIS she has a Spanish accent. 

Clara coughs and he suddenly realises that he’s been holding Elara’s hand slightly longer than is strictly necessary. He lets go, as his companion offers her own introduction.

“Clara. We travel together. Sometimes. And this is Captain Antares.”

“Who put out the advertisement,” finishes Elara, “So nice to meet you all. I believe you’re looking for a covert combat operative.”

Antares’s mouth twitches slightly. “Emphasis on the covert.” His implication is plain, Elara is unlikely to go _anywhere_ and not draw attention.

She seems unperturbed, her smile widening. “Do you need a demonstration, Captain? I expected so, given the pay you’re offering.” She touches something on her wrist and the lights flicker, dimming the cabin for a half-second or so, during which she vanishes into thin air.

“That’s a nice trick,” says Clara dryly.

“Very clever,” the Doctor agrees, “Reversing the light waves.”

Antares opens his mouth to respond and gasps instead as invisible hands take hold of him. He struggles, looking vaguely ridiculous fighting thin air, but she is far too strong for him. He buckles to the floor in pain and she flickers back into reality, holding his arms behind his back in a painful looking grip. “And that’s why you should never judge a girl on her looks, Captain.”

“Point taken,” he manages, and she releases him.

“Will it be a standard contract?” She speaks to the Captain, although her eyes flicker back to the Time Lord still scowling at her.

“Standard contract,” confirms Antares, rubbing his wrist, “Half the money now, and half the money when we get back. Plus equal share of any profit from materials found on the other side of the Gate. In the event you don’t come back, your pay will be sent on to any dependents that you specify.”

She smiles again. “That sounds _very_ reasonable.”

“We’ll see you on launch pad six at oh-five-three-five. Welcome to the crew, Elara.”

Her smile twists for a second. “Should I salute you Captain?”

Antares considers this. “Would it make you feel more comfortable?”

She shakes her magnificent head. “I’m a long time out of the military.”

“Then I wouldn’t bother.”

She extends her hand instead and they shake on their deal. “I’ll be seeing you,” she says, winking at the Doctor as she takes her leave. Clara barely supresses a snort, somewhere between amusement and exasperation.

“Do you think we can trust her?” asks Antares, after a moment.

The Doctor nods absently, now staring out of the star port-hole with Clara. “She gave you her word.”

“The handshake?”

“Yes. She’s Kesel. They don’t back down on a deal if they can help it.”

“I know that. But they don’t normally let military operatives out of service with a body full of wetware either.”

Further speculation is interrupted by the arrival of three more figures, hooded and robed in lustrous black. Two of them wear silver masks, plain ovals of metal without eyeholes. The third looks almost human, although corpse-pale in his dark hood. They should be comical, cartoon villains. Instead, Clara takes an involuntary step back, her initial greeting dying on her lips. He watches, and knows a glimmer of pride as she swallows her disquiet and reapplies her friendly smile.

“Hello. I’m Clara, and this is the Doctor.”

“We are Multiple.”

“Is that a name or a description?” asks the Doctor, head on one side.

“Look who’s talking,” breathes Clara.

The Pale Man blinks slowly, as if the question requires thought. “Both.”

“I’m Captain Antares,” interjects their potential employer, trying to bring a little normality back into proceedings, “Are you applying to share the same position or separately?”

The Pale Man’s expression doesn’t flicker, but there is a hint of something like confusion in his eyes. “We will fill all available positions.”

Antares purses his lips. “Right. So, which one of you is the engineer?”

“We are the engineer.”

“Okay… So one of you guys is the software specialist?” Antares gestures to the two silent robes.

“We are the software specialist,” answers the pale man, and the Doctor can sense Antares already thin patience is about to snap. He opens his mouth to explain, but Clara has raised her hands in conciliatory gesture.

“Wait,” she says to Antares, “I think I understand. You’re a group entity, aren’t you? A hive mind.”

“We are Multiple,” agrees the pale man.

Antares’ frown deepens. “Alright, I get it. You speak for all three of you. But you can’t seriously be suggesting you’re a hardware _and_ a software specialist.”

“Yes. We are Multiple.”

The Captain makes a noise of frustration in his throat. “Well, thank you for your time Mr Multiple, but I don’t think-”

“A moment Captain,” interrupts the Doctor, face aglow. “Multiple. What am I?”

None of the segments turn to look at the Time Lord as the pale man recites baldly: “You are the Doctor. You look human, but you are not. Binary vascular system. Your core body temperature is only sixteen degrees Celsius. You are aware of our telepathic collective but capable of shielding your thoughts from ours. You and your female companion are suffused with Artron energy, leading me to conclude you are travellers in ti-”

“That’s enough.” He turns to Captain Antares, smiling. “Oh, come on Captain. He’s ever so good.”

“At magic tricks… and-and cold reading. That’s not useful to us on this mission.”

“We assure you Captain Antares,” says the pale man, “We do not misrepresent our skills. We have references from our previous employer.”

“Shaula,” says Clara softly, and for a moment the Doctor wonders who she is talking to. Antares starts at his first name, rarely used, as she continues: “I know it can be hard to accept, but if the Doctor thinks Multiple is going to be helpful, you’d be wise to listen to him.”  

“Do I have any choice?” Antares replies, equally soft, a hopelessness edging into his voice.

She nods, honest eyes wide. “We won’t make you take on crew you don’t want to.” She raises a hand to prevent the Doctor’s protestations before they can even start. “Shut up, Doctor. We won’t do it.”

He knows better than to argue when she’s in one of these moods. In truth, her show of sympathy appears to have worked better on Antares than his rough-shod override would have anyway.

“Her faith in him is absolute,” says Multiple, surprising them both.

She looks at her feet, blushing slightly; for reasons he doesn’t understand. “Good to know,” he says to cover the sudden awkwardness.

Antares reaches his decision, although his face suggests it is one he is prepared to regret. “Welcome to the crew then, Multiple.” 


	4. Beating Heart

He pilots the TARDIS into the cargo hold of Antares’s ship−a cruiser-class transport with noticeable modifications to the defence array−while Clara searches the TARDIS wardrobe for suitable attire. Hielo is in the grip of a millennia long ice age. One day it will green again, and a past version of himself will walk amongst the pristine forests that eventually replace the desolate glaciers. Today,  Hielo is death to a human not appropriately dressed.

She emerges on cue as the TARDIS lands, standing in the doorway of the console room with one hand on her hip. “Is all this _really_ necessary?”

She is bundled from head to toe in orange thermals, her face framed by a fur hood, mask pulled down and goggles on her forehead.

“Yes.”

“And yet _you’re_ wearing a thin hoody. And no hat.”

“Why would I need a hat? I’ve got the hood. Anyway, I am taking gloves, look.” He waves them at her. “It’s not my fault _you’re_ basically a tropical ape and I’m an advanced species,is it?”

“ _Tropical_ ape? Ha. That’s a new one. Come on, I’m over-heating just standing here.”

He follows her out into the cargo bay, effectively the belly of the ship, lined with shuttle pods. A stairway leads up to the crew quarters, kitchen and bridge.

“The _Wray_ ,” Clara says, reading the huge stencil adorning the bay walls.

A pun, he suspects, referring to the Batoid shape of the ship and Scorpius’s bright star. “The Bridge will be upstairs. You don’t want to miss the view on our trip through the Gate.”

She gives him a look, blowing fur and fringe off her already sticky forehead, but follows him down the bay and up the stairs.

Elara unfolds down the ladder from her quarters as they pass, wearing only a thin leather jerkin and trousers. Her mouth quirks at the sight of the swaddled Clara. “Nice coat.”

“Thanks,” replies Clara breezily, unintimidated.

The rest of the crew are waiting on the bridge, Antares and one of the faceless Multiple segments at the helm.

“All here Captain,” says Elara.

“Good. Time to be going.”

There is the slightest shudder as the docking clamps release, and they are away. The ship swings slowly backwards from the station, out to where the Gate hangs in space. The graceful arch gleams in the starlight, sinuous alien metal, blackness held within. The _Wray_ edges towards it slowly, inching into position. There is a second of stillness as the manoeuvring thrusters cut out, and then the rumble of the main engine starts to thrum through their feet.

They enter the Gate. For a second it is hard to draw breath; the sensation of being _squeezed._ The blackness explodes with light, stars rushing past in a blur, and suddenly winking out. They burst from the Hielo Gate, wrought from the side of a mountain that would dwarf Everest, and accelerate away over a vast tongue of ice.

Clara’s face is aglow, he notices. The TARDIS brings them wonders, of course, but he rarely takes the time to provide an aerial showcase like this. Perhaps he should do it more often.

They pass the control tower, a dark finger against the greys of the ice stretching away in all directions, and the ship begins to make her descent. Antares disengages from the helm. Multiple’s concealed segment can apparently pilot unaided, despite the lack of eye-holes in its silvery mask.

“There are three outward Gates on Hielo,” explains the Captain, “And Alya could have taken any of them onwards. Or she could still be here. Clara, Doctor: you’ll be scoping out the Alpha Gate. Elara and I will take the Beta, and Multiple One and Two will take Delta. Multiple Three will remain here with the _Wray._ ”

He touches the helm, and Clara jumps as a shimmering hologram of a coltish young girl suddenly appears on deck. She is frowning, pensive, long dark hair partially hiding her face.

“Alya,” says Antares simply, his voice thick. “Find her. Bring her back to me.”

He passes them all a fat grey disk with a button in the middle. Clara has to remove one of her huge mittens to take it, and looks inquiringly at the Doctor. He presses the button of his own disk in explanation. The same image in miniature appears, standing up from where the holo-emitter sits in his palm.

“In case you need a reminder.”

Clara tucks her disk into the front pocket of her enormous coat and replaces her glove, fixing the Doctor with a determined look. “Let’s go find her.”

* * *

 

“Well, how did you think we were going to get to the station?”

“I don’t know!” she retorts, “The TARDIS maybe? Some sort of transporter… beam. Not snow speeders. More specifically, not _you_ driving a snow speeder.”

“But why would I make you wear that coat if we were going to take the TARDIS?” he asks, appealing to reason.

“Fair point,” she concedes, casting a critical eye over the speeder. “That is… a fair point. Right.” She appears to have reached some sort of decision, pulling up her mask and putting on her goggles. “I’m driving.”

“What? No, come on, you’ve never driven a speeder before-”

“Maybe not, but it looks pretty much the same as my scooter and I’veseen how you pilot the TARDIS, Doctor. No arguments. I’m driving; you can navigate.”

She swings a heavily padded leg over the seat and sits in the driving position, brooking no disagreement.

With extreme reluctance he climbs on behind her. “You _used_ to let me drive,” he complains, as she fires up the scooter.

“Yeah, well! I know you better now!” she shouts over the engine, and they roar out of the cargo bay doors after the others.

The cold hits him like a door for all his claims of superior biology; catching in his throat and cutting to his core. The speeder skips along the ice, roaring away from the _Wray_ at considerable speed. He can just about hear Clara whooping over the rushing wind. 

“Left!” he screams, all propriety forgotten as he clings on to her for grim death, “You need to go left! Follow that glacier!”

She turns the speeder gracefully. With grudging reluctance he’s forced to accept she _can_ drive the thing rather well.

The icescape unfolds before them; mile after mile of interwoven grey and white stretching away to the distant rock walls of the valley. He tries not to let his teeth chatter as she manoeuvres them around the occasional up-thrust of dark rock or powdered snowfall, following the tongue of ice.

Alpha Station sits at the junction between glaciers, a glittering spire that catches the setting sun and flashes red-gold. For a second he is worlds away; speeding towards the gleaming tower of the Academy on Gallifrey, shining world of the seventh system. Then the light changes, and reality returns.

They join what is clearly a highway into the Station, other bundled travellers now zipping alongside them towards the formidable structure. Traffic slows as they approach, peeling off left and right to destinations unknown. The main road continues inside the Station, rough-cut ice arching around the thoroughfare to form a huge tunnel.

“Next exit!” he yells over the drone of the speeders and she pilots them onto the slip-road. The conceit that the whole station is hewn from the ice is revealed at this point, carved walls giving way to metal shutters and container units. These are the business premises and houses of the lower tier of the Station, laid out in a rough grid within a huge fissure in the ice. The Doctor calls Clara to a halt outside a particularly large unit. Several other speeders are parked outside.

He disembarks somewhat stiffly. “This is the place. Old Martin knows just about- what? What’s so funny?”

She fails to quite stifle her giggles “Your eyebrows have frozen.”

“Well, I’m sure they’ll thaw out soon enough,” he returns waspishly, “Come on. We’ve got people to talk to.”

He leads her inside the unit, which is decked out in the universal furniture of scummy bars across the Universe. Ill-matched fixtures, puddles of stale smelling beer and lumpish intimidating clientele are very much the order to the day. Several such patrons are openly staring at Clara.

“You always take me to the nicest places,” she mutters.

“That’s a bit unfair. We did see the _Orient Express_ , after all.”

“Yes, and look what happened. A mummy tried to kill us.”

“There are no mummies here. I’m absolutely certain,” he lies.

She raises a sceptical eyebrow, not at all fooled. “I’m more worried about the Abominable Snowmen in this instance.” She trails off, frowning.

“None of those left either,” he reassures, watching her closely. “Are you alright?” He’s never really sure; what she remembers and what she doesn’t of all those copies of herself she scattered throughout time and space.

“Yeah. No. I-just…” She takes a breath, regains her usual cool, and tries again. “I’m fine. Just a feeling. Like someone walked over my grave.”

“Let’s hope not. Anyway, don’t let the battered exterior fool you. This place is the beating heart of the Station.” He spreads his arms wide, inviting further scrutiny. Behind him, one of the patrons begins to slide slowly off his stool. She watches in fascination as the drunk slips all the way down to the floor, where he rolls over and starts to gently snore.

“Beating heart?”

“There’s no call for that tone,” he says severely, “And stop smirking.”

Before any other barflies can undermine him, he sweeps over to the bar proper where a man is cleaning glasses. He is _probably_ human, although his giant mustachios, hulking frame and shaggy fur overcoat definitely suggests walrus as a potential second option.

“Afternoon traveller,” he says, “What can I get for you?”

“A Telurian tea,” answers the Doctor gravely, fixing the man with a glare made only more ferocious by his still-thawing eyebrows, “Two limes, but hold the olive garnish.”

The landlord’s mouth drops open. “Professor?”

“Yes,” says the Doctor, enjoying Clara’s obvious confusion. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Martin.”

Movement under the mustachios suggests something like a smile might be happening. “Professor!” Before he can react, the Doctor finds one of his hands is now caught in Martin’s fearsome grip. He _almost_ manages not to wince, as the giant delivers his traditional bone-grinding handshake. “It’s been too long! I must say, the new cover is really impressive. I’d never have guessed it was you.”

It’s hard to look too pleased with himself when circulation is progressing no further than his wrist. Thankfully Martin lets go, transferring his attention to Clara. “My new associate,” the Doctor says by way of explanation.

“Clara Oswald,” says Clara.

For reasons unfathomable to the Doctor, Martin kisses her hand rather than crushes it. “A pleasure to meet you. Martin Ingeborgsen. I run this establishment, for my sins.”

“And many they are,” mutters the Doctor, which raises a booming laugh from the landlord.

“You musn’t listen to him,” Martin tells Clara, “Almost all of the stories about me are lies. What can I possibly help you with this time then, Professor?”

Wordlessly, the Doctor pulls out his holo-emitter and the brooding Alya flickers into life in his palm. Martin studies the girl’s frowning face carefully before shaking his head. “She didn’t come through here. But I can put out some feelers.”

“Good man.”

“I’ll need at least a day,” Martin continues, “Come back tomorrow and I’ll let you know what has turned up. Oh, before you go, Doctor… I don’t suppose you see much of the delightful Ms Dorothy these days?”

He swallows the sick swoop in his stomach, smiling tightly. “Sometimes. Around and about.” In his nightmares mostly.

“Give her my best, won’t you? That Nitro stuff she helped me brew up went down a _treat_ with the mining crews over on the Nils Glacier.”

“I’ll try to let her know.”

Clara waits until they are outside to ask the obvious question. “Who’s Dorothy?” Her tone is soft rather than accusatory, afraid she already knows his answer.

“You know, she hated that name. Almost everyone knew her as Ace.” He meets her big doe-eyes, forcing himself to say the words. “She was on Gallifrey in the last days of the war and I don’t know what happened to her.”

Her mouth twists and she nods. When he wore another face she would have hugged him about now, and it might have made him feel better. These days she gives him that sad look instead, knowing there’s nothing in anyone’s embrace that can take away the hole of his missing people; that he’d rather keep up the pretence that he’s really fine about it all. Water under the bridge. Or something like that.

“Come on,” he says, “There’s somewhere else we can check for Alya while we’re waiting.”  


	5. Fractures

“I thought you said you owned this place?”

He growls in frustration, sonic screwdriver in hand as he tries to bypass the security protocol on the battered shutter doors. “I do. It’s the stupid biometric security systems. Totally _useless_ if you’re going to be changing your face. And your fingertips.”  He pulls out a few more pointless wires and switches settings. The light over the door changes from red to green. “Bingo!”

She touches the door pad and this time the shutters slide upwards, revealing the main living space of a particularly utilitarian flat.

“It’s not very futuristic, is it?” She runs a finger over the stainless steel counter-tops, somewhere between kitchen and morgue.

“Hmm?” He isn’t listening, eyes fixed on the brown paper package that is sitting on the dining table.

She follows his gaze. “Someone left you some post.”

Like a man in a dream he crosses to it, turning the paper label over to read words he still remembers from almost a thousand years ago. For the second time today his hearts twist.

_Hello sweetie! You’ll have to hurry if you’re going to catch up. Extra incentive in the box. R._

The ink is fresh. Not faded with centuries, but written days ago by a warm hand that passed across the paper he holds. He knows what’s in the box from when he opened it before, and he aches to open it again now. How marvellous it would be, to step into his past self’s life for a moment, and have those days with her again.

 _“Not those times. Not one line. Don't you dare._ ”

Her words to him, almost her last; his promise. Did she know, a millennium later, he’d still be struggling to keep it?

_Probably._

Clara’s cough drags him back to reality. “You aren’t going to open it?”

“No,” he answers coldly, “It’s not for me. At least, not for me now. It was. And it will be.” He sighs, realising something else he needs to do to preserve the timeline as he remembers. “ _And_ I’m going to have to fix that door.”

“I’m assuming you’re going to start making some sense in a minute.”

“It’s always possible.” He waves his hand at a blank monitor on the opposing wall. “Computer terminal there, turn it on and search the departing passenger manifests for Alya’s name.”

It’s her turn to sigh, pouting just a little. “Dull… but sensible.”

Her search, predictably, is fruitless, but in the time it takes he manages to fix the door’s security circuit. She tries a few other sensible queries; looking for job adverts on the Station Core that might be Alya’s captors searching for additional help in moving her across worlds; at police reports from the days she might have been on the station.

“There’s nothing obvious,” she says, frustrated.  

“No, I didn’t think there would be.” He is sitting on the sofa now with his head in hand. “That’s what Martin’s for. The not obvious. Still, it’s good to know.”

“What now?”

He thinks about it for a moment. “Now I think it’s about time for the Lights.” Standing up, he extends his arm, stiffly formal. “Shall we?”

* * *

The green lights of the aurora borealis play across her face as they arc overhead. “What do you think?” he asks, enjoying her reaction almost as much as the spectacle.

“Honestly, it’s beautiful.”  

They are standing on an elaborately carved balcony, overlooking the main promenade of the Alpha Station and opposite huge windows permitting views out over the Nils Glacier. The streaming fire ripples in the sky over the ice, ignored by most of the shoppers below.

They catch Clara’s attention for a moment; heads-down scurrying from stall to stall. “How could something like this ever get boring?”

“I don’t know,” he answers, “I suppose if you live with such beauty all the time, you just get used to it. Start to assume that it’ll always just be there.”

He’s ninety-five percent sure he’s still talking about the northern lights, which is almost certain. To his relief she ignores any alternative interpretation, staring back up at the show without so much as a blush. “Aurora Borealis… Actually, are they? Are they still called that here? Are we even in the right hemisphere?”

He nods. “Alpha Station is in the northern hemisphere, although the Nils Glacier runs all the way to the equator.”

“Beautiful nebula and now northern lights. This has almost been a sight-seeing trip,” she teases, “I can’t say I object to a bit of a change of pace.”

“There’s practically a ‘but’ hanging in the air,” he observes, and she laughs out loud. “Okay. I’ll admit, I could have phrased that a bit be−”

There is no warning. The words are still on his lips as the roar of the sudden explosion hits them. He is thrown into the air in a maelstrom of icy shards and splintering metal, with just enough presence of mind to grab her arm. They scythe through the air together; thump down hard onto what he hopes is the ground.  They slither for a few feet until he manages to dig his boots into the shattered ice enough to bring them to a halt.

He can feel blood, hot on his face, and there is a terrible pain in his right side. Clara’s arm is still clutched in his left fist. Even with the ringing in his ears and the blossoming agony of their fall, his first coherent thought is to make sure the rest of her is still attached to it. He raises his head, vicious purple and yellow flashes winking on and off in his strobing vision.

She is in one piece at least, spread-eagled on the platform of ice next to him. “Clara?”

She groans, an encouraging sign. “Ow,” she manages.

“You’re alive. Good.” Looking over her prone form, he has already spotted the next problem. “We need to get up.”

“Doctor,” she says weakly, and he knows she must be in considerable pain; none of her usual fire and spirit in the face of this unreasonable request. “I think my arm is broken.”

Her free arm _is_ crooked at rather an odd angle; he suspects she threw it out to protect her face as they slammed back into the ground. “Yes,” he says, “Probably it is. But right now we have bigger things to worry about.”

She lifts her bloodied face, badly grazed by the ice, and gives him a disgusted look. “Bigger things?”

“Yes,” he explains patiently, “We’re still on the platform, Clara. Only most of it is no longer attached to the wall.”

With some difficulty she turns her head in the opposite direction, seeing for herself their precarious position. Some of the hidden metal supports of the balcony miraculously remain in place, their block of ice still attached to the Station wall. Less fortunately, the ice is now angled at least ten degrees towards the ground, with the safety barrier that would prevent their regrettable slide towards a sheer drop comprehensively smashed. Audible even over the whistling in his ears is the quite delicate _plink-plink_ sound of metal under stress.

She swears. In the circumstances he decides this is probably appropriate, and he’s willing to let the matter slide. _Slide. Ha. Good choice of words Doctor!_ His legs are starting to shake with the effort of keeping his toes dug into the ice. He suspects he has lost rather a lot of blood; the curious over-bright exposure of the world and sudden hilarity of his own internal monologue are rather a clue.

“Clara. We need to move. Slowly.”

“Okay,” she replies, “Okay.”

“Just move one limb at a time. If you can,” he instructs.

She makes a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “Okay.” She edges her feet up, digs in her own toes. Her right hand moves suddenly, grabbing a fistful of his jacket. “Don’t you dare let go,” she warns.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He tentatively moves his own foot into position. “Together. Gently. Slowly.”

They creep, inch by agonising inch, pressed flat against the broken ice. His fingers are beyond numb from clawing at the surface when they reach the broken edge of the platform. He can see the bent girders, still miraculously anchored into the ice. Stress fractures expand, even as he watches, spiralling out to break apart the ice from its metal footings.

He reaches up, taking hold of twist of bent metal and drawing in a deep breath. He heaves Clara forward onto the flat stub of balcony that still remains securely fixed. She manages to get on her hands and knees, gasping at the pain from her broken arm, and helps pull him up to relative safety.

“Doctor,” she says shakily, reaching out for him with her good hand, “You’re hurt, you−”

“Shut up,” he admonishes, fumbling for the sonic screwdriver. His fingers slip on the handle but he manages to switch the tool on. Their tumble has smashed one of its power cells but it will still function. He scans it over her, cataloguing the damage. Human beings are fragile. She has several cracked ribs to go with her fractured humerus and some tremendous bruising. The screwdriver whines at a higher pitch as he changes to a healing setting, knitting back together the broken bones.

“I can sort out the bruising back at the TARDIS,” he tells her when he’s finished. “Needed to save some power for me.” The world is going decidedly dark around the edges; possibly he has left things a little late.

“Let me do it.” She takes the screwdriver from him. Her hands are steady as she scans back and forth, and some of the pain in his side eases.

“That’s enough,” he says after a moment. He doesn’t need a scanner to know the extent of his own injuries. His own cracked ribs can wait now she has healed the puncture wound to his secondary liver. Besides, they might need the screwdriver to get through the ruin of the Station.

“Come on.” He helps her to her feet. “We need to find Martin.”

For once, her hand remains in his as they pick their way through the debris. 


	6. Promises, promises

“Hmm?” he says, having failed to listen properly the first time. His mind is a thousand years ago, thinking about his last visit to the Alpha Station. Was there reconstruction work happening then? Was he so distracted by River’s gift that he failed to notice? Or perhaps a millennia of life well-lived has taken those memories from him; they’ve been replaced with the burning battlefields of Trenzalore. Wracking his brain turns up nothing but grey fog, which potentially suggests a third option: someone is changing the timeline unfolding around them.   

“We should help,” Clara says, “We could-”

“We could what? Move rubble? Carry bodies? Or find out who’s behind this and stop them?”

She flinches at his sudden flare of rage but sticks doggedly to her guns. “Martin could be anywhere, Doctor. He could be _in_ the rubble. Anyway, what makes you think he’ll know who’s behind this?”

“ _I_ already know who’s behind this,” he snaps, “The people who took Alya. The bomb is a distraction mean to stop us going after them; hopefully permanently.”

She shakes her head. “You _can’t_ know that.”

“It makes perfect sense.” She’s right about Martin though. He doesn’t for one second think the landlord is stupid enough to have been involved in the explosion, but he’s a carer. Like Clara. He’ll want to help people any way he can. “Where’s the nearest first aid station?”

She thinks he’s changed his mind about helping. He can see it in the softening of her face, furrowed brow unknitting. Doesn’t understand; it’s a numbers game now. Alya’s kidnappers will kill and kill again unless he catches them. He can’t play catch up, patching together broken pieces they scatter in their wake. There will always be too many to save everyone.  

“We passed one at the last intersection.”

He spins on his heel, heading back down the cracked corridor. Wiring and heating pipes unspool out of the broken ceiling at intervals, venting steam or sparks. He is storming along; she needs two steps to his every one and ends up jogging alongside him to keep up.

His resolve is tested sorely as they enter the first aid station. The air smells metallic from the blood; icy floor splattered with red and green. Wounded on stretchers are laid in haphazard rows while those that can stand wait on their feet. There must be sixty people crammed into the waiting room already, and only two medics. They are working desperately on a young man, bleeding out from the ragged stump that used to be his leg. Clara retches beside him but manages not to vomit.  

 _Doctor_. He’s never regretted taking that name. At his core he will always be one who needs to fix broken things.

“You need to apply more pressure here,” he says, bending to a woman quietly sobbing on a stretcher at his feet. She is attended by a young boy who might just be her son. The boy nods and shifts his hands accordingly. “She’ll be alright,” he promises, “As long as you keep the pressure on there, nice and strong.”

He turns to his left, ripping a strip of tourniquet from his shirt without really thinking about what he is doing, as his eyes dart over the room. Who he can save; who is beyond helping. Those that hang in the balance between the two.

“Tell me what to do, Doctor?” breathes Clara, pale as milk. “Please. Tell me how to help.”

He applies the new tourniquet expertly to a badly sliced Graske, who is slipping out of consciousness. “Two to the left, five up,” he says softly, “She’s not going to make it. Hold her hand and tell her she’s going to be fine. And find out from the stretcher crews where the big bearded fellow from the lower levels has been sent.”

* * *

He watches her as she takes another sip of Martin’s best whiskey, the spirit bringing a little colour back to her cheeks. Her bloodied clothes are gone, replaced with an exquisite silk outfit that almost certainly once belonged to one of Martin’s numerous ex-wives. Curiously the landlord has neglected to tell Clara this, and he resolves to inform her at some point. She must be interested in why Martin would possess such a fine suit when it could never possibly fit, after all.

“Better?” asks their host, unusually pale and drawn himself. They are sitting in his front parlour, the noise of a thronged bar just audible through the heavy oak doors that access his private quarters. It’s not his normal clientele that have packed out the space tonight, however. Martin has offered his bar as an emergency shelter for those left homeless by the blast, also putting at their disposal the food and non-alcoholic drinks he would normally sell.

She nods. “A little.” Her eyes are sad but he can see her hands wrapped around the glass are steady. She was always made of stern stuff, his Clara. The thought freights a little pride.

He swirls the amber liquid in his own tumbler, taking a mouthful of smoke and spreading warmth. “What happened?”

 “They wanted passage up beyond the Nils, to the Juntha ice-field. One of my regulars happened to hear them asking around for a guide. You know what it’s like up there; speeders won’t work, _huronk_ just freeze to death, and the heat from a shielded ship just draws the Wyrms. It’s suicide. No one’s tried it since that university team disappeared seven years ago. But they had money, and you can always find someone on the station willing to part a fool from that.”

“They made a contact?”

“Yeah, a scrapper lad. Genth, I think he was called. He went up after the team that disappeared, helped bring back some of their lab equipment. Made quite a profit on it. He knew the terrain better than most and had the knack of avoiding Wyrms.”

Martin’s use of the past tense isn’t lost on him. “Dead?”

 “Mm-hm. Found him in his apartment. Three days at least. They cleared him out. Maps, speeder, ice gear – the works. I tried to access his apartment’s security feed; find out how they managed to fool the Station into thinking Genth was still alive. Maybe get a few scraps of conversation from the internal sensor log if I was lucky.”

“And?”

“And then the Promenade exploded. Genth lived right on First. The apartment’s a smoking crater along with the rest of the street.”

“How did you survive?” asks Clara, slightly hoarse from her whiskey.

“I used a droid to do my breaking and entering,” Martin explains with a smile, “I’d have died a long time ago in this business if I did that sort of thing in person.”

“We need to follow them.”

Martin shakes his head. “Suicide. I told you. Even for natives.”

“Don’t give me that. There’s always a way.”

“To freeze to death or get eaten by a Wyrm. Not one where you come back in one piece.”

“Oh, come on! You know I’m−”

“No, Professor,” interrupts Martin, “I’m serious. Juntha is death, plain and simple. I’ve helped you out with a lot of crazy schemes over the years but never anything I thought you couldn’t handle. Please, trust me. I’m not helping you kill yourself, and I’m certainly not helping you kill Clara here.”

He meets the man’s eyes and sees the truth in his unflinching stare. A stupid, pudding-brained piece of gallantry, but Martin has probably earned the right to make a poor decision after all these years. He scowls, but holds his temper in check.

“I need to contact my ship,” he says, trying a different tack. “Communications were knocked out by the blast.”

“I can help you with that,” Martin agrees, but turns first to Clara, taking one of her hands in his enormous fist. “Promise me you won’t let him take you out to Juntha? I could never live with myself if he got you killed on such a foolhardy mission.”

“I promise I won’t let him take me,” she replies levelly, patting Martin’s hand.

This seems to mollify the man. He stands; surprisingly steady on his feet after several large measures of his whiskey. “Your ship is the _Wray_ , right? I’ll try and get her on my comm.”

He shuffles into his study room, leaving them alone for a moment in the velvety cocoon of the parlour.

She finishes her whiskey before speaking. “You’re not stopping here, are you?”

“No. They murdered innocent people to try and keep their movements a secret. I need to know why. What could possibly be so important that they would do that.”

“And bring them to justice.” Not a question. A statement of her intent. He wonders what she can mean by _justice_ ; how there could ever be some sort of scale that balanced out the death and pain dealt today. Justice is a human preoccupation, not his concern. But her words betray something else.

“You’re staying with me then?” He could still pop her home in the TARDIS after all. Back to dishes and domesticity. And Danny too, these days. 

Her face is flushed now with anger. “Five people Doctor. Five. And all I could do was hold onto them as they lay dying and tell them we would help. If we can’t stop this… then the last thing they heard today was a lie.”

He can’t quite meet her righteous gaze, eyes darting left and right as he struggles to find an appropriate reply. “You promised Martin.”

“That I wouldn’t let you take me. I never said _anything_ about you leading me there.” 


	7. Snow Speeders

“This is insane.”

He can’t make a reply, bolts from the speeder’s heat shield in his mouth, but Clara has his back.

“Not insane,” she says lightly, “Dangerous and difficult, but definitely not insane.”

Elara gives her a scornful look. “ _You’ve_ never even been out on the ice-field. What can you know about it?”

“I trust the Doctor. If he says this can work, this can work.”

The ringing endorsement, however complimentary, should mean nothing to this stranger. Instead, she looks chagrined. “I never said I didn’t trust him.”

He takes the final bolt out of his mouth. “Ladies, please,” he says, “You’re embarrassing me.”

This earns him a withering look from both of them, and Elara retreats back to her corner of the cargo bay, to repack her gear for the umpteenth time. Unperturbed, he installs the final bolt to the retrofitted speeder and steps back so Clara can admire his handiwork.

“Ta-da.”

“And this’ll work?” Clara checks. She runs a hand over the rough insulation material he has added.

He raises his eyebrows at her concern. “I thought you trusted me?”

“Shut up. Explain to me how it’s going to stop us getting eaten.”

“The Wyrms hunt by sensing the heat of other living creatures. They’re not fussy; anything warm will do. I’ve seen the really big ones take down ships that dropped too low over the ice.”

“So, the shield reduces the heat from the speeder meaning we can slip by unnoticed?”

He should just nod. Nod and agree with her summary. She doesn’t need to know the details. They’ll only worry her unnecessarily. But his stupid mouth seems to have run on without his brain. “Relatively.”

“What does that mean?”

“What I said. Relatively unnoticed.”

“Relative to what, exactly? Doctor! Tell me the truth.”

“Relative to an unshielded speeder,” he confesses, “It means we shouldn’t draw Wyrms to us, but if we happen to cross one tunnelling under the ice they might still be able to sense us.”

“And what happens if they sense us?”

He makes a snapping movement with his hands. “Dinner.”

She lets out a long breath, shaking her head. “Beginning to think Elara might have had a point.”

“We’re not driving blind,” he reassures her, picking up another piece of technology he has quickly patched together. “Portable seismometer. Will let us know if there’s anything headed for us.”

Antares appears at the head of the bay, descending down the stairs to the cargo floor with the Pale Man and a Faceless segment of Multiple in step behind. He nods to them both. “Time to suit up.”

This time the Doctor pulls on his own thick orange survival suit to match Clara’s. As well as welcome insulation from the cold, it might help protect from the Wyrms’ thermoceptors.

“We’re in position,” calls the Pale Man.

The _Wray_ cannot fly too close to the ice-field, its shields and engines will draw the Wyrms. Their only safe option is to drop down from height.

For a given value of safe, anyway.

The doors groan ominously and blinding light spills suddenly into the bay, the howl of the wind shrieking around them.

“Move out!” shouts Antares, gunning his speeder.

“Remember!” the Doctor calls across to Clara, “Lots of speed, and keep the nose up!” He can’t see her expression behind goggles and facemask, but he does see her nod before she follows the Captain out of the door. Hoping he can follow his own advice, he pulls back the throttle on his machine and launches himself after her.

There is a moment of eerie calm, the featureless expanse of snow seeming to accelerate up towards him. Then the speeder makes ground with a bone jarring thud. He roars after Clara, following in the tracks laid down by Antares on-point.

The seismometer remains reassuringly steady as they speed across the snow plain. They are making for the old research base, in the hope it will offer some clue as to what Alya’s kidnappers could possibly be doing on the Juntha field. It is snowing by the time they reach the perimeter fence.

“Pretty impressive!” shouts Clara, barely audible over the wind.

The fence is nine feet high above the ground and bites down deep into the snow and ice, probably as tall again below ground. Razor wire is woven throughout, while intermittently spaced indicator bulbs topping the upright poles suggest it was also once electrified.

“Not impressive enough!” replied Antares, indicating the collapsed section ahead. They pilot the speeders through the resulting gap and see the base proper for the first time.

It was presumably a symmetrical tower once, a sleek cylinder that calls to mind a Saturn V rocket rather than then usual space-base architecture of hastily slapped together units. The University of Kairos branding on the shell is still just visible through a thick layer of ice. Something has torn a chunk out of the middle section. Huge icicles suspend from what used to be floors and ceilings, now left hanging in mid-air and exposed to the ferocious elements.

The airlock at the tower base is open, a thick drift of snow blown into the corridor beyond. They park the speeders just inside, hoping the relative cover will stop them being buried by the wind-whipped snow while they explore. Inside, the base it is still deathly cold and pitch dark, but the howling wind at least is quieter. He drops his hood. Some tiny, primitive part of him wants all his senses available, not muffled by inches of insulation. Clara does the same. Without any word of command from Antares they have formed a defensive huddle.

“What happened?” Clara whispers, back to back with him. She has produced a small torch from her pocket. The thin beam of light reveals only empty corridor.

“Someone got careless,” Antares whispers back, “Didn’t deice the perimeter fence when they should. Shorted out, and the Wyrms got in.”

“There’s nothing on the seismometer,” he says, not quite sure who he is reassuring with this fact. “We should split up. Cover more ground, spread the heat more thinly.”

“Good idea. Keep in radio contact. Doctor, if you hear the slightest peep out of that seismometer, you let us know.”

They edge away left down the corridor until they reach a diverging fork. Clara gives him a determined sort of look and takes the right hand branch; he keeps left. Peering through the frosted windows of the abandoned laboratories he sees nothing of particular interest in the first few rooms. The fifth door, labelled as a student dormitory, he almost overlooks. He has already walked past by the time his brain makes sense of what his eyes have seen. He stops, spins; checks to make sure he isn’t imagining things.

He isn’t. There are fingerprints on the icy handle, almost but not quite frozen over again. Someone−a warm, probably human someone−has opened the door recently. A quick scan with the screwdriver reveals nothing untoward behind.

He opens the door and steps inside.

They left in a hurry; all beds unmade, personal effects scattered and photographs pinned to the walls. Still, the mess in the room seems a little extreme, even considering the occupants were students. Someone has been searching through their odds and ends, rifling through the drawers and wardrobes without troubling to tidy up after themselves.

There’s little point in looking for something that, if found, the original searchers probably took away with them. Ask not: what were they looking for? The better question is: _what’s missing?_

His first instinct is to radio Clara, who he feels is likely to have more insight into what young students are likely to have stored in their dorm. His fingers stay half-way to the call button, eyes on a montage of grinning faces.

Three people, all clad in silvery survival suits, smiling at him underneath a thin coating of frost. Arms entwined, they are posing in front of a huge wall of glittering ice; positioned so a convenient halo of darker greys in its matrix encircle the friends. He reaches up, plucks the photograph from the wall. On the back, in looping writing, someone has written a caption.

_Intrepid explorers! First day on Linnaeus Site 17.56.91. Macha, Ingrid and Zole._

He presses the button on his radio. “I know where they’ve gone.”

“Don’t leave us in suspense, then,” transmits Clara after a beat.

“The Linnaeus Site. Do you know where that is?”

A crackle. Antares speaks. “I’m in the control room. The Linnaeus Site is marked on their dig map. Co-ordinates 67-42-376. What makes you think they went there? Their reports say it wasn’t very promising.”

“They missed something.”

“Something like what?” Elara cuts in. “Just tell us, Doctor.”

“I think they found another Gate.”

There is a moment of stunned silence, interrupted by a soft beep. His eyes flicker to the seismometer, which beeps again. He gives it a surreptitious shake, just in case. The reading remains stable.

“Captain? We have another problem.” 


	8. Working the Details

He almost collides with Clara in the corridor outside, sprinting hard for the airlock.

“Doctor!” she gasps, eyes saucer-wide, “What do we do, do we run?”

“We run,” he agrees.

All but Antares have already made it back to the speeders by the time they arrive. Clara hastens to pull on her goggles and mask.

“Do we wait for him?” asks Elara.

“No,” he says gravely, “Get out now. Make for the Linnaeus site. Keep your personal shield up and don’t stop for anything. You shouldn’t be warm enough for them to sense.”

“I don’t want to leave you-”

“Go!” he orders, “The longer we stand here talking, the more hot air there is for the Wyrms to sense. Now get going!”

She holds his wild-eyed stare for a moment, tension in her jaw. “Yes sir!”

He winces as that, but she kicks her speeder into life and disappears into the storm without another backward glance.

“You too Multiple. Try not to travel too close together.”

Clara watches them leave before asking: “Doctor, what about us?”

“67-42-376,” he snaps, “Get it into the nav-comp on the speeder.” In his hand the seismometer has upped the frequency of its insistent beeping.

_Come on, come on._

“Why are we waiting?” she asks.

“Because you and Antares are human. Warm and tasty humans. The Wyrms are going to target you two first.”

“So we give the others a head-start… and then what? I _don’t_ want to get eaten Doctor.”

“Rest assured, I have a plan.”

“Good!” She is practically shouting now, fear ebbing into anger “What is it?”

“Still working the details.”

She makes a noise of frustration as running footsteps precede the arrival of a flustered Antares. He is carrying rolled up maps from the control room.

“I… had to… collect…” he tries to explain breathlessly, but there is no time now. The beeping is almost a constant stream and he can feel the vibrations beginning to build through his feet.

“Out!” the Doctor snarls, “Out, out, out!”

Clara shoots out of the door like a champagne cork from a bottle, and it’s all he can do to keep up with her, as they fly across the wind-whipped snow. The seismometer’s beeps are lost in the howl of the wind. It’s tricky even for him to navigate one-handed, look at the display _and_ do the necessary calculations in his head at the same time. Timing, as ever, is everything. The irony is not lost on him.

He draws in a deep breath. The moment is here. The numbers tell him as much, but more than that is the feeling of possible futures branching off all around him; just out of reach.

 _End up in the one where you’re still alive_! he tells himself sternly. Even Time Lord regenerative capabilities aren’t enough to withstand being eaten by a Wyrm. Probably.

From his pocket he pulls out the triphasic detonator, rearmed in a hasty moment before fleeing the ransacked dormitory. It has the reassuring weight of a cricket ball, which some deep and hidden part of himself will always know how to throw. Up in the air it arcs, every ounce of strength he can scrape together behind the little ball of compact destruction. The wind catches and carries the tiny bomb even further; he hopes he put enough spin on it. He does not see it hit the ground, lost in the haze of blowing snow.

“Whatever happens,” he shouts as he accelerates to Clara’s side, “Don’t stop!”

She doesn’t look up from her handlebars, lying almost flat to decrease wind resistance and move ever faster.

There is a blinding flash, reflected back at them from the snow all around, and seconds later the thunderclap boom of the explosion. He risks a glance over his shoulder, noting the towering column of flame with satisfaction.

“What was that?!” screeches Antares.

“A distraction!” he replies, “That should draw every Wyrm for a hundred miles around.”

“And then what?”

“And then they’ll be so busy fighting they won’t bother hunting humans!”

“Really?” shouts Clara.

“Hopefully!” he returns.

Her angry reply is, thankfully, lost to the wind.

* * *

Alya’s captors are nothing if not efficient. Their enormous tunnel runs dead straight, from the icy surface of the glacier down to the alien metal of the buried Gate. Criss-crossing an intervals, however, are rougher holes made by hungry Wyrms.

Clara’s hand catches his sleeve. “Are we safe?” she whispers, nodding to the yawning dark.

“They’re all back at the research base,” he reassures.

“Why did they attack the Gate?”

“They didn’t.” He points to the strewn electronics that litter the tunnel. “They came for the generators they used to open it.”

The others are gathered at the mouth of the closed Gate, nothing more than a graceful arch without power.

“Can you make it work again?” asks Antares.

The Doctor nods.

“Yes,” says the Pale Man.

“Good. The rest of us will get back to the _Wray_. Keep high enough to avoid drawing Wyrms here until you two are done.”

Clara’s immediate concern is entirely predictable; he cuts her off before she can work up a real head of steam. “Doctor−“

“Go with them back to the ship. This is an engineer’s job and I’ve only got one screwdriver.” She bites her lip, clearly unhappy about leaving him on the surface, weighing up whether hours of cold and dark in the tunnel is worth the fight. She is shivering, he realises, despite her many layers. He risks an uncharacteristic kindness. “Please?”

She blinks in shock. “Okay. Just… promise me you’ll come back in one piece?”

“Absolutely boss,” he affirms, baring his teeth in approximation of a smile.

* * *

They risk no heater, and he works solely by the light of his sonic screwdriver. The Faceless segment of Multiple holds a torch steady for the Pale Man, similarly engaged at his side.

“Doctor?” chirrups the radio in Clara’s voice. “How’s it going?"

“Slower than it would if people would just let me get on with it.”

She chuckles. “We’re scanning for Wyrms from up here. You were right. The bomb at the research base has sent them into some sort gladiatorial frenzy. Nothing anywhere near you at the moment.”

“I know I was right,” he complains, “Go and get some rest. You know what you humans are like when you don’t get enough sleep.”

“Oh?”

“Cranky,” he supplies.

She laughs again. “What’s your excuse then, Doctor?”

“I’m long suffering.”

She makes no reply to this, hopefully heeding his advice to rest. Although knowing her, probably not.

He sits back on his haunches, inspecting the first patched up generator. It’s not a pretty sight, but it should do the job. Now for number two. “How’s the wiring coming?”

“Well,” answers the Pale man.

Silence falls but for the buzz of the screwdriver, as hours slip away. He’s lost track of how long they’ve been working for when Multiple decides to speak again.

_Does your species not need sleep?_

It takes a second to register the voice has arrived in his head without bothering to travel by way of his ears.

“Not as much as most.”

_Does telepathic communication offend you?_

“No,” he replies shortly, “I’m just out of practice.”

He _senses_ rather than sees Multiple’s smile, not a flicker on his corpse-face _. We rather think you worry that mind-to-mind contact will tell us too much about yourself._

He shrugs. “You seemed pretty well informed about me back on Deresta.”

_We would like to know more._

This elicits a wry smile from the Doctor. “Wouldn’t we all?”

_We suspect you are a Time Lord._

“Nah,” he lies, keeping his face carefully blank as the sonic buzzes in his hand, “They’re extinct. Have been for a long time.”

_Not all of them._

His eyes flicker, meeting the Pale Man’s for just a moment. In that brief second he realises he has fallen straight into Multiple’s trap; the flare of hope and yearning he couldn’t supress in time is his undoing. He curses himself internally for that instinct, always underpinning everything; he has to know.

 _We have encountered one once before. A renegade of the species we believe._ _He travelled under a title rather than a name. Like you._

“Such was their custom, I believe.” One of the few he’s ever stuck to.

_He expressed an interest in the architecture that enables us to sustain a collective between disparate bodies._

Curiosity has the better of him. “I’d assumed you were all telepathic.”

_No, not all. Any species is welcome to join our collective and enhance our knowledge of the universe._

He looks away from the second battered generator for a second, to better study the Pale Man’s face. Still a mask of blank calm. “How many of you are there?”

_We do not know. When we left contact with the majority we numbered some seven billion segments._

“A planet’s worth of people, all linked together? I’d like to come and see that one day.”

_Perhaps you shall. We regret that we only allow visitors to our home world under invitation._

The implication is clear; he has yet to prove himself worthy of that invite. He smiles to himself as he resumes work, always liking a challenge. “How long have you been linking together like that?”

_How old are we, you mean? Over two-thousand Galactic years._

Time to roll the dice. “Me too. It’s nice to finally travel with someone who really understands what that means.”

_Incredible._

“What’s incredible?”

_That any being could sustain sanity over such a period with only one body._

“Sane is a strong word,” he mutters, “You think collective existence over that kind of time period is easier?”

_Undoubtedly. The only way to store such experience without being overwhelmed by the vastness of the universe. To mitigate the sadness of mortality with a ceaseless cycle of new life to replace the old as it is extinguished._

“I mostly use forgetting,” he confesses, “Of the bad bits, anyway. And them, I suppose.” He waves a long-figured hand vaguely in the direction of the radio.

_Youth through whose eyes you can see the Universe anew? Perhaps we are more similar than you know._

“Perhaps. Is that why you travel in threes then? To help with the processing of all those new experiences?”

_Originally we numbered seven. The unfortunate loss of four segments was regrettable. We were returning home to report our experiences when we became aware of your arrival on the Station at Deresta._

“ _That’s_ why you came on this mission? Because of me?”

 _You are a Time Lord._ He doesn’t bother to deny it this time. _Your presence is… concerning._

He turns off the screwdriver again, plunging himself into shadow. “Concerning? That’s a new one. Why am I concerning?”

_As we mentioned, we have previously encountered a member of your species. It was unpleasant._

“Because he asked about your collective architecture?”

Again, he feels Multiple’s discomfort rather than sees any flicker of it on the face he chooses to wear in the world.

_He wished to learn the secrets of our technology for himself. That knowledge is only for those who choose to join our collective. When he revealed his lack of interest in doing so, we asked him to leave our world. He then attempted to steal what we would not give freely. Many segments were lost._

“Why would a Time Lord be interested in stealing that kind of technology…?” He sighs, knowing the answer the moment he speaks the question aloud. Technology that enables the slaving of many bodies to a single consciousness? There’s only one who would ever desire such a thing. “You met the Master.”

_Yes._

It’s the first time he’s spoken that name in over a thousand years, the first time he’s thought of his old enemy; older friend. “Well, you can stop worrying. He’s dead. They’re all dead. Except me.”

_That is not the story we were told._

“Doctor?” Antares’s voice on the radio this time, breaking the leaden silence. “Is it ready?”

He blinks, making the decision to pursue this new mystery later. “As it’s going to be,” he answers. “Time to get moving.” 


	9. The Reward

“Oh, you’ve got to be joking,” Clara says, as the _Wray_ emerges from the lost Gate.

The ice fields of Hielos are gone, replaced by desert sands. The primary sun squats fat and red on the horizon, smaller twin still high in the sky. A shimmering heat haze hovers in the air.  

“Look at it this way: it’s a change of costume.”

“Yes, from Scott of the Antarctic to Lawrence of Arabia.”

“It could be worse.”

“How?”

“Well, we could be underwater. Scuba gear is even less flattering on someone of your…” He waves a hand vaguely, trying to think of the right word. She hates it when he calls her short. “Size.”

The ringing silence that follows this pronouncement suggests his diplomatic option was anything but. Antares breaks the hush, quite possibly saving the Doctor from an untimely death at the hands of his companion. “Have you pair _finished_?”

“Scans indicate another Gate structure, approximately five kilometres south-west of here,” reports the Pale Man.

“Life-signs?”

“One. Very faint.”

Antares scowls. “Take us down behind those dunes then, Multiple. This feels like a trap. I don’t want them to see us coming.”

* * *

“They definitely aren’t moving.” 

They are lying flat on top of a convenient dune slope. Clara is now wearing a loose fitting burnous, a pair antique of field-glasses pressed to her nose. He gives his collar a surreptitious tug. Black is a good colour for a time-traveller, rarely out of place in any setting, but possibly not the best choice for desert wear.

 “Where did you find those?”

“TARDIS wardrobe, obviously.” Unusually terse; he suspects she is still rather annoyed at him for his innocent observation regarding wetsuits.

They inch back down to the bottom of the dune, where Elara and Antares are waiting following their own investigative forays.

“Well?”

“It looks like there was some sort of fight. There’s spent bullet cases all around the base of the Gate and what looks like a body behind the tent.”

Elara nods her assent. “The desert heat is affecting my internal sensors, but the only life sign I’m picking up is in that tent.” 

Antares takes a moment to consider their options. “Okay. Elara, I want you to go and take a closer look. Be careful. There could be traps or detectors we haven’t spotted.”

She nods. “Don’t worry, Captain. I have done this sort of thing before. The rest of you should head back to the ship for now. I’ll report back to you with my findings.”

“I’m coming with you.”

They all turn to look at him, three different expressions of confusion. “I’m sorry Doctor, but you’re too conspicuous, and I can’t risk-”

He holds up his left wrist, grins, and presses the button which makes him invisible.

He hears Clara sigh. “I _knew_ I should have confiscated that watch.”

Elara shakes her magnificent head before similarly fading from view. “I’ll make sure we stay unnoticed,” reassures her voice on the air.

He is already making towards the dune hill, impatient to investigate, but stops abruptly as invisible fingers close on his wrist.

“You can still see me?”

“Not exactly _see_ , but sense, certainly. With me, Doctor. Even invisible you’ll still leave footprints on the dune slope. Let’s go this way instead.” Her hand slips into his, leading him around the dune. He’s uncomfortable with hand-holding at the best of times; being unable to see the owner of said hand does not improve the experience.

They inch closer to the Gate, and the large tent pitched at the base of the plinth on which it stands. The owner of the boots Clara spotted through the field-glasses lies spread-eagled on the ground. He is indeed dead. The sand is bloody beneath him.

“He was running away,” he whispers. The mess of the exit wounds on the dead man’s chest suggest he was shot in back.

“Yes.” Elara breathes her agreement. “Shot by someone inside the tent.”

He turns a critical eye to the structure. It is hard white, plastic-looking; more akin to a decontamination tent than anything one might take camping. He’s seen similar before. “Does it look… familiar to you?”

“Yes.” She swallows. “It’s a Kessel field hospital tent.”

He digests this information. “We’re a _very_ long way from Kessel space. Any ideas as to why a military medical outpost would be here?”

“None. But I’m keen to find out.”

He hears her take a deep breath, before the doors are pulled open before him.  

Inside, it is cooler than he expects. The air conditioners are still working. There are three gurneys, each with a physician’s station at their head. The first gurney is empty, station laid out ready for surgery; laser scalpels, tissue regenerators and electro-cauters in a neat row.

The second gurney is not empty. The Doctor has lived long enough to look once and then away – nothing can survive the kind of mutilation visited on the occupant, and he has enough fuel for his nightmares as it is. Blood drips slowly onto the floor.

A man lies on the third. He is brilliant blue, clearly Kessel, and obviously dying. The Doctor drops his cloak of invisibility and crosses to him, grabbing the tissue regenerator as if it could be of any use. The man’s ribcage is torn open; he looks as if he has been bitten by a shark. Extensive augmentations are clearly visible through the gaping hole, a mixture of blood and synthetic fluid pooling around him.

“Too late, I’m afraid,” the dying man wheezes. He has a dandelion puffball of white hair and a kind face; the air of a genial grandfather.

Elara drops her own shield, standing on the other side of the gurney. She is ashen, her breathing fast and shallow. Her reaction strikes him as odd; as a soldier, she has undoubtedly seen bodies before. Horrible as the man’s injuries are, battle wounds can be worse. He frowns. “Elara?”

“Is this it?” she breathes. “This is my reward?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You promised me that I would get my chance−my chance to make it up. To Elysia.” Her voice cracks as she says the name. “I never dreamed… I didn’t believe.”

“What _chance_? You’re not making any sense, Elara, you’ve-you’ve developed a _fault_.” She is staring down at the dying man on the gurney with a terrible hunger in her eyes. “Elara, Elara! Listen to me. I don’t understand. Who’s Elysia?”

“Her sister,” rasps the man, “Elysia was her sister.”

He hates moments like this; of not holding all the pieces of the puzzle. He thought he knew how the story would unfold when they came in here, but suddenly the supporting characters are reading from a different script.

“You _know_ each other?”

“They were my star patients,” replies the man, “Never such fine work… in all my years. Elysia was the saviour of our people.”

“She was fourteen!” snaps Elara, “A child! You had no _right_ , none at all.”

“She gave herself willingly to the programme,” the dying man counters mildly, “After I explained my success with you, and how I believed she would be even more… compatible with the technology.”

“What child doesn’t want to become a hero to her people? To end a bloody war? To blast every last Dalek out of the sky and _understand_ ; what it was all _for_ ; why we were fighting over some primitive Human colony a billion light years away−”

Understanding dawns at last. “Trenzalore.”

Both Kessel wince at the sound. “That name is forbidden,” hisses Elara.

“The Daleks tried to carve through Kessel space, didn’t they?” he says, “To get to past the Papal Mainframe.”

“They succeeded. Our people bled out for those wretched Humans. A thousand worlds burned. Our Empire in ashes.”

“Poetic,” spits Elara, “Is that how you justified it to yourself? Is that how you sleep at night?”

“I gave our soldiers a chance, Elara. Through you. Through Elysia. Without you the augmentation programme would never have succeeded.”

“You carved her up,” Elara says, voice thick with rage, “You cut away all that made us good and kind and _happy_ and you stitched in its place a machine heart. An android’s soul. Do you know what it’s _like_?” She is shouting now. “All that’s left is what you deemed combat suitable! I can’t feel _anything_ that you didn’t want me to feel.  The warmth of another’s touch. The beauty of a sunrise. The only thing that makes me happy is bringing death to my enemies! Well, guess what? I only have one enemy left now. And that’s _you_. I’m going to watch you die, Surgeon. I’m going to _make_ you die.”

She snatches for the laser scalpel, but the Doctor’s hand is miraculously faster. She looks askance, amazed that he could have the strength and speed necessary to stop her.

“But you promised,” she begs.

“No,” he intones, praying that he’s right. _Am I a good man, Clara_? Time to find out. “Whatever I promised you Elara, whatever I said; this isn’t it.”

“ _Then why am I here?_ ” she screams. “‘Travel a long way,’ you said. ‘Find who you are. One day you’ll be so very far from home and you will see me again when you least expect it.’ Well, I did travel Doctor. I did what you said. And when I finally stopped hoping that I would ever see you again, there you were. With Clara. Looking like… like nothing had happened, no time had passed for you at all. And you didn’t recognise me. But I _knew_. I knew this was the time that you’d spoken of.” 

“Elara, listen to me. What I said to you, it hasn’t happened yet. Not for me. I don’t know what it is that you’re here for, but I do know that it isn’t _murder_.”

“But I told you! I cursed _his_ wretched name.” She indicates the man on the gurney. “I told you that there was nothing else left for me in the universe but my vengeance.”

“Then that’s what I meant,” he says. “That’s what my promise was: something else. Something _other_ than killing. You’re not a soldier anymore.”

The shadow of a thousand potential futures is cast over their tableau; he has no idea what will happen next, out of the grey. So he rolls the dice, letting go of her hand. To his immense relief it falls to her side; her head bowing. Time for the next problem.

“Why are you here, Surgeon?” he asks. “How did you end up dying so very far from Kessel space?”

The Surgeon smiles. “She came to me with a commission. To _me_. The best surgeon in all the galaxies. To carry out an augmentation like… like nothing I’d ever seen. Of her own design.”

“She?”

“The girl. Alya. She bought me here and we-we tested her design first.” His eyes flicker towards the mess of parts on the other gurney. “And then I performed the operation on her.”

“ _Alya_ bought you here?”

“Yes, of course. She bought all of us. And when it was done, she betrayed us.”

He blinks. “ _What_?”

“Once she knew the operation was successful, she did this. To me. She shot Tomance out there as he tried to escape. And then she took the Gate.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” whispers Elara.

“You’re telling me,” the Doctor snaps. “Alya was kidnapped−”

“Of course she wasn’t! She _escaped_.” The Surgeon laughs, his chest wound bubbling horribly. “Oh Elara. Did they lie to you again? Did they−?”

“No,” interrupts the Doctor, pulling the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. “I won’t let her kill you, but I won’t let you torture her, either.” He points the screwdriver at the Surgeon’s throat. The man’s lips move, his face turning purple with the effort of shouting, but no further words come out.

“What did you do?”

“I turned off his vocal modulator.”

He turns away, looking for the pieces that will help him make sense of this puzzle; angrier than he can remember being for a long, long time.

“ _Did_ Antares lie to us?”

He logs into the Surgeon’s computer terminal, scanning quickly through the schematics and scans stored therein. Until he finds the answer he is looking for.

“Yes,” he growls.

Underneath the rage is a ripple of fear now, for Clara is waiting back with the Captain. A desperate desire to run back to her, to make sure that she is safe, competes with his need to understand this terrible place. He throws open cold storage boxes stacked at the back of the tent, his stomach roiling at their grisly contents. He finds what he is looking for, wrapped in something like a zip-lock bag. He scans it with the sonic before turning back to the Kessel soldier.

“Is he dead?”           

“Yes,” she breathes.

“Good. Then we can go.”

His fingers close around the cold contents of the bag.


	10. Love and Compassion

They are waiting in the cargo bay. Clara leaps up from her seat at Antares’ side as they enter. “Doctor, what did you find−?”

He throws the bag down at Antares’ feet, ignoring his companion, ignoring the intense relief he feels that she is still unharmed. Ignoring everything but the face of the man who has led them across worlds on this fool’s errand.

“Open it.” His tone brooks no disobedience. Like a man in a dream, Antares opens the bag.

An arm falls out onto the cargo bay floor.

“Doctor!” Clara yelps, “Is that−?”

“Her arm,” confirms Antares quietly. He closes his eyes briefly, despairing. “Is she dead, then?”

“Why don’t _you_ tell _me_?”

“What? I don’t understand.” Grief turning to anger; a man on the edge. He almost feels sorry for the Captain. Almost.

“The truth, Captain. About Alya.”

He looks nonplussed. “She was kidnapped and those that knew her identity killed. I was sent to−”

“No,” he snarls, advancing on him now, “The truth. Now. All of it.” He isn’t at all sure what he’s going to do when the reaches the man.

Clara steps between them, frowning. “Doctor,” she says, putting her hand out to stop him. “What did you find?”

“Alya isn’t a Daughter of Serpentis,” he replies, “She isn’t even nobility. She’s a slave girl, same as him. And she wasn’t kidnapped. She escaped.”

“ _What_? No… she−she wouldn’t have… She believed in our mission.”

Clara’s eyebrows shoot into her hairline. She turns to face the Captain now, too. “I’m sorry? Your _mission_?”

Antares takes his head in his hands, pulling at his hair. He seems unable to speak.

“I’m not going to ask again, Captain.” Pin-drop silence descends, Antares still as a stone. The Doctor sighs deeply. “I know that she’s your daughter.”

He ignores the gasps from Clara and Elara. Antares slowly raises his head, a hunted look in his eyes. “How long have you known?”

“I had my suspicions when you showed her to us on the holo-emitter,” he admits, “But when I saw the skin graft scar on that arm, I knew.” In actuality, he intended to carry out a genetic scan with the sonic on Antares; to unequivocally confirm a match with the severed limb. The man’s face, however, is now confirmation enough.

“Please,” the Captain begs, “Is she dead?”

“I don’t think so,” he replies. “Now you answer _my_ question. Let’s start at the beginning. How did your daughter come to be posing as a ward of Scorpius?”

Antares holds his gaze for a long moment, and finds no mercy there. He sags a little. “In the beginning it was for her protection. The real Alya’s, I mean. The Master knew my wife had just given birth; that the babies could be exchanged and no one but us know.”

“So, the real Alya was raised a slave?” asks Clara.

“No,” Antares laughs, bitterly. “We thought that we would switch her back, later on. She needed a noble’s education. A minor cousin adopted her. They have no idea who she is; think she’s the child of the Master and his favourite concubine. She has all she could want for and a place of honour in our House. They call her Lyella.”

Clara frowns. “Then why _didn’t_ you make the switch back?”

“Because she was brilliant,” he replies, a picture of misery, “My daughter. She was writing trade agreements for her tutors when she was tiny that put those of the House Council to shame. Nothing that the House could ask of her was beyond her. And Lyella… well…” He shrugs. “She struggles as a student. She has no interest in trade, no aptitude for negotiation. If she returned to Serpentis she would be easily manipulated. We couldn’t rely on her to broker a true peace.”

“So they kept your daughter.” The Doctor closes his eyes for a second, pushing away the vague memories of a small hand held in his, so very, _very_ long ago. Now is not the moment.

“Yes.”

“Does she know?” Clara continues.

“Yes. We didn’t tell her. Not at first. But she never quite believed the story about the skin graft on her arm being the result of a childhood burn.”

“It’s where you removed her tattoo,” the Doctor supplies.

Antares nods. “I know you must think me a terrible father,” he says, more to Clara than him, “But I was with her… _every_ day. She knew that she was loved by her birth parents as much as her adopted ones. And she was happy. She wanted to help her people.” 

“No,” says Elara, quietly, “No. You don’t get to rationalise it that way.”

“What?”

“She is a _child_. She’s not capable of making decisions like that. She shouldn’t have to. What’s happened to your daughter is your fault, do you hear me? Your fault!”

Clara’s frown deepens and she shoots him a loaded glance. He doesn’t need to be a telepath to read the question in her eyes. _What’s happened?_

He shakes his head slightly. _Not now._

 “Whether she agreed to it or not, something has changed,” he says slowly, “Captain, I’m sorry. But your daughter wasn’t kidnapped. She broke free.”

“No,” Antares shakes his head vehemently, “No, I can’t believe that. Alya was gentle. Kind. She would never have killed anyone. Never. Whatever you’ve heard, whatever you’ve been told: it’s a lie.”

“Okay, okay. _Maybe_ ,” the Doctor shoots back, “But maybe not. I need you to be honest with me. What could Alya be seeking out here?”

“I swear to you,” Antares replies, close to tears now, “I have no idea.”

“He’s _lying_!” snaps Elara, frustrated beyond endurance.

“No.” Clara, quiet; understanding. “No, he’s telling the truth. Think about it. No one knew about that Gate on Hielo. Not even the Doctor. Whatever Alya’s doing, willingly or not; he doesn’t know what it is.”

“What do you wish us to do now?” says the Pale Man. He has been quiet throughout the entire confrontation, face betraying nothing of his thoughts on this unexpected turn of events. His question, however, is addressed to the Doctor rather than Antares.

 “We follow,” he says, grimly. “But not blindly. Not this time. Multiple, I need you to start working on the Gate. It’s out of power, just like the last one. As for the rest of us… Captain, do you have Alya’s personal console? Any security footage from her disappearance?”

“Yes, but it’s all been searched. You’re not going to find any evidence there.”

The Doctor sniffs, sceptical. “Let’s find out.”

* * *

The girl on the screen, Alya, opens the suitcase. It contains traded trinkets from a minor lord of the House given to her for valuation. They are of aesthetic rather than any real monetary value, pretty things. She lays them out professionally on the baize of the table; fetches labels and an elaborate pen with which to label them. This goes on for some time.

“What have you seen?” asks Clara, dropping into the chair next to him. She is clutching a mug of coffee, eyes ringed dark. They have been examining logs and video footage for the last fifteen hours, and even her concentration is beginning to wane. Elara is snoring lightly at another screen set up across the bay.

“Nothing,” he replies, chin in hand.

“You’ve watched this one before, though. Half a dozen times.”

Nothing much gets past Clara. He pauses the video at the appropriate moment. “Here.”

Clara watches carefully. “She puts on the tiara. So? It’s very pretty.”

“You don’t see anything else?”

She rewinds, watches again. “Maybe. When she puts it back on the table. There’s something different in the way she holds herself, isn’t there?”

“Yes.”

“Could just be that she felt self-conscious after putting on the tiara, though.”

“Yes.”

She supresses a yawn. “How’re the generators coming?”

“Slowly. I might go and lend Multiple another pair of hands.”

“You don’t think there’s anything more to be gleaned from the logs?”

He shakes his head. “Much as it pains me to admit it, Antares might be right. There’s nothing in these files to suggest anything other than the activities of a dutiful and talented daughter of the House.”

She stands, putting what he assumes is meant to be a comforting hand on his shoulder. He stares pointedly at it, but she fails to take the hint and remove it. “I’m going to go and get some sleep while there’s a chance. Afraid this primitive ape needs rest. We can’t all be a superior species like you.”

“Hmm.”

“You’ll figure it out. You always do.” She pats his shoulder again for good measure and takes her leave, climbing up the stairs to their crew quarters on the _Wray_ rather than going back to the TARDIS. He rubs his shoulder surreptitiously, and ponders why. Not until she is definitely out of sight does he relax back into the chair properly, head lolling, eyes closed.

He is beyond tired. Past exhausted. The time since he last slept properly can now be reckoned in _months_ rather than weeks. Surely if he keeps his eyes closed and lets the darkness take him for a while he can sleep without dreaming…?

_The drawings of the little children flutter, disturbed by a breath of air that carries the smell of hay. He turns._

This is a dream _, he tells himself._

_It doesn’t matter. The crack yawns in front of him, widening. He will be able to step through in a moment. To go home at last._

_The crack opens and he stumbles forward. Dark shapes approach from the other side; the Time Lords come to carry him back a hero._

_And then he hears them, the shadows beyond. “EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE THE DOCTOR!” He realises the truth, in that terrible moment; that none of it has mattered a damn. Gallifrey is lost and his people are slaves to the Daleks−_

“Hey! Hey, Doctor!” He opens his eyes. Elara is standing over him, having apparently shaken him awake.

“What?” he demands.

“You were shouting,” she says, looking troubled. “More than that. Screaming.”

“Of course I wasn’t. Don’t be ridiculous,” he snaps.

“Oh, right. Of course. I just woke myself up _imagining_ you were yelling. Or I sleep walked over here to wake you, is that it?”

“Sounds like perfectly plausible explanations.” The clock timer on the computer screen says he has been asleep for all of two minutes.

“Doctor…?”

“What?”

She licks her lips, suddenly nervous. “You were _there_ , weren’t you?”

He turns away from her, pretending to reload another security feed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Trenzalore.”

She whispers the name, like it is a bad omen. He says nothing in reply, which is answer itself he supposes. He replays Alya’s final moments in the Chapter House, eyes unseeing, the scar of the crack in the universe still seared into his vision.

“Do you know what he did to my dreams, Doctor?” she asks after a while.

“No,” he says, still resolutely not looking at her. No need to ask who _he_ is. “Took them away, I expect.”

“Yes, exactly,” she replies, “He took them away. When you strip out a person’s ability to feel certain things, things like love or compassion, you take away their dreams. And leave them with just their nightmares.”

His skin crawls at her words, perturbed in spite of himself. Love. Compassion. These were the things that cost him dear on Trenzalore. He has tried to put them at a distance in this new incarnation; favour logic and detachment in their place. He blinks. “No. That would drive anyone mad, after long enough. Too unstable for a soldier.”

She nods. “You’re right. Which is why they gave us these.” From her belt she pulls out a little folding case, like a compact mirror. She opens it to reveal four little patches, a metallic component in their middle.

Curiosity has the better of him. “What are they?”

“Dreams, Doctor. Try one. I promise it will help.”

His hand hovers over the open case for a moment. Then the radio crackles with the voice of Multiple and he pulls away.

“Doctor, do you read us? We have completed work on the generators. We’re ready to open the Gate.”

“Reading you loud and clear, Multiple. Do it.”

Elara shakes her head, but closes the case and puts the mysterious patches away. “Are we going to go through?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Why? Do you want to stop?”

“No!”

“You empathise with Alya,” he suggests, “You want to save her.”

“And _you_ want to solve the mystery,” she fires back, “I saw the way you reacted when you realised Antares had kept something from you. You have to know.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “I do.”

“Well then, you have your reasons and I have mine. There’s no one on this ship that wants to stop now.”

“Then I guess we’re going,” he says.


	11. Stoic Heroism

“Doctor, what is this place?”

A featureless expanse stretches in every direction, a flat grey desert as far as the eye can see. There are no dunes, no rocks; no topography of any sort. Only a single set of footprints, ruler straight, headed for the distant horizon. Roiling clouds are massed overhead. There is a terrifying eeriness in such emptiness.

“I don’t know.”

A loud crack makes them all flinch. A purplish fork of lightning, searing itself onto their eyeballs, has struck to port. Alarms begin to blare on the bridge console.

“Are we hit?” snaps Elara, turning to the nearest panel.

“No,” replies Antares. He is frowning as he flicks switches; trying to quiet the alert. “Anyway, lightning strikes won’t penetrate our shielding.”

“Then what’s all the noise?”

“It’s the radiation alarm,” says the Doctor, standing from his chair.

“It must be faulty,” Antares dismisses, “We have _interstellar_ radiation shielding.”  

“No.” The Doctor brings the relevant display up on the main screen. “It’s not a fault. You need to take us into a high orbit. Now!”

The ship judders as Multiple engages the engines on his barked command. Antares rounds on the Doctor furiously as they rise, bursting through the angry clouds and into the black of space.

“This is _my_ ship,” he hisses.

“Look at these readings, Captain,” the Doctor returns simply, extending an arm, “You’re human. _Clara_ is human. Even minutes of that sort of exposure would have terrible consequences.”

“ _Alya_ is human,” Antares chokes out in reply, “How can she possibly−? Those footprints. I mean−” His voice breaks.

Elara breaks the silence. “Those tracks covered at least forty miles,” she says flatly. “For her to have survived that long, with that level of exposure, I think we can assume she has installed some personal shielding.” 

Antares swallows hard, but makes no reply.

“Doctor…?”

He turns to Clara, offering her a reassuring smile. “You’ll be okay,” he affirms, “We weren’t on the surface long enough for you to absorb a harmful dose.”

“Glad to hear it, but that wasn’t what I was going to ask. How are we going to catch up with Alya if we can’t even take the _Wray_ down onto the surface?”

“There are radiation suits in the cargo bay−”

“Ha! They’re _space suits_ , Captain,” scoffs Elara, “They barely offer any more protection than the shields do. You wouldn’t last five minutes.”

“I’ll go.”

His moment of stoic heroism is somewhat undermined by Clara’s growl of frustration. “Doctor, don’t be dim. You’ve just said it’s basically suicide.”

“For humans.”

She grinds her teeth. “Fine, yes, point made. But are you really wanting to spend a regeneration on this? We could take the TARDIS and−”

“No.”

“No?”

“I will not take the TARDIS anywhere near the surface of that planet.”

 “Why not?" Hands on her hips, she is staring up at him as if he is one of her particularly truculent teenage charges.

“Because it’s not a planet. It’s a Dyson Sphere. Do you know what that is?”

“A megastructure built around a star able to harness its energy.” Her scowl hardens at his look of surprise. “Don’t look so shocked.”

“There are very few species in the Universe capable of creating them. And this one seems to be transmitting, perhaps even _amplifying_ , some of the radiation at its core.”

Her hands slip back to her sides, frown softening slightly. “And that makes you nervous.”

“More than nervous.”

She lets out a long sigh. “Okay, no TARDIS then. How long will you have?”

He shrugs. “A couple of hours at least.”

“I’ll go with you,” says Elara, “With a suit and my personal shield, I should have about the same life expectancy down on the surface.”

Clara winces at her phrasing. “Doctor, are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Elara nods grimly. “Then let’s suit up.”

* * *

Clara lays out the pieces of the radiation suit with an air of quiet professionalism. For all of Elara’s scorn it is a high quality piece of equipment. There are several layers of material to be placed between the Doctor and the hostile environment of the Sphere, a bubble-like helmet and three pairs of thick gloves.

“Clara,” he says.

She ignores him, pulling open the suit boots to make it easier for him to slip his feet inside.

He tries again. “Clara.”

“Uh-huh?” she says, still steadfastly avoiding his eyes.

“Clara, I want you to listen to me.”

“I am listening.” She continues her defiant work for a few more moments, before sighing and turning to face him at last. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“There’s another reason I don’t want to take the TARDIS down onto the Sphere.”

She shakes her head. “Definitely not going to like this.”

“If I don’t come back, if something happens down on the surface−”

“No,” she says flatly, “Don’t say that.”

“If something happens,” he continues doggedly, “The TARDIS can get you and anyone else that wants to leave home safe. I want you to use her as a lifeboat, if it comes to it.”

“And what about you?”

Those big sad eyes turn up at him, almost over brimming with concern. He has never felt quite worthy of them. Perversely, he almost prefers the anger she has directed at him of late over this pity.

“I know what I’m doing,” he replies.

Her mouth twists up at the corners, but she keeps any wit she has to offer on this patently ridiculous observation at bay. Instead she indicates the disassembled suit. “Put your base layer on and I’ll help you do the zips.”

She turns her back to give him a modicum of privacy as he strips down to his underwear and struggles into the grey base layer, akin to a giant baby-gro. He puts on the second layer trousers before coughing discreetly to let her know she can turn around. They are no more flattering, but at least leave something to the imagination.

She helps him shrug on the rest of the suit. In truth he is grateful for her nimble fingers on the many zips and fastenings across his back; for feeding in the components of the respiratory system and pressing buttons his gloved fingers find awkward. There are few moments, these days, when he can allow something as intimate as this to pass between them. For once he does not feel guilty.

It feels like an appropriate goodbye.

Finally they come to the helmet. She holds it in her hands, ghost of a smile quirking her mouth again. She is too short to place it on his head. He bends down, allowing her to slide the plexi-glass over him and fix the seal. The internal display flickers into life, allowing him oversight of suit structural integrity and life-support functionality, amongst other things.

“Everything ok?”

“Yes,” he replies, “Everything’s good.”

“Well, then.” She straightens the front of his already straight suit and gives him a beautiful but brittle smile. “You better go save Alya.”

Across the bay, Multiple is helping Elara with the final pieces of her radiation suit. Behind the airlock door he can see Antares, working to prepare one of the shuttle pods for launch. He picks his way over carefully. Elara gives him a thumbs-up when he reaches her.

“Ready, Doctor.”

They enter the shuttle pod and settle themselves into the pilot seats. Clara leans against the door frame, biting her lip. He presses a few buttons carefully, fingers made imprecise by layer upon layer of protection. The engines are almost warmed up, ready for atmospheric flight, but Antares seems unwilling to leave the shuttle.

Clara, as always, has the solution. “Time to let them go, Captain.” She lays a gentle but firm hand on the man’s shoulder and helps to walk him back into the bay. “Good luck!” she calls, as she closes the door behind them.

Elara has the pilot’s console, the Doctor is controlling navigation and sensors. “We are good for launch,” she says, “Detaching from hull in three, two, one…”

There is an audible _clunk_ as magnetic clamps release. They are free.

“Take us back to the Gate.”

Inertial dampeners are less powerful on the shuttle than the _Wray_ ; their swift descent presses him into his chair. They clear the churning thunderheads. “Anything on the sensors?”

He shakes his head. Alya’s footprints are still clearly visible, leading away from the Gate. “I think we have to follow where she’s leading us.”

* * *

“Do you see that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what the hell is it?”

“I don’t know. It’s not appearing on the sensors.”

The miles zip away beneath them, bringing the dot on the horizon into focus. It is a pyramid, hewn from black stone, growing larger by the second.

“It must be five hundred feet tall! How can it not appear?”

He shrugs. “Perhaps we’ll find out when we get inside.”

“You want to go _exploring_?”

He points at the footprints they have been following for the last twenty minutes. “I think Alya did.”

Within his helmet, numbers tick steadily up; measuring his exposure in sieverts. Frustratingly there is no option to remove this unwelcome distraction. He resolves to ignore it.

Elara pilots the shuttle to the base of the pyramid. As he suspected, Alya’s footprints lead to the steps of the monument.

“Anything?”

“As far as the sensors are concerned, the area in front of us is as featureless as any other on this Sphere.”

She curses under her breath, and brings them down to the ground.

The Sphere’s surface is covered in a film of grey dust. He bends to brush some away and finds a dark, metallic-looking foundation. The numbers on his internal display begin counting faster, an unwelcome reminder that he has little time for curiosity.

Together they climb the steps that lead into the pyramid. “Looks like it was made for humanoids,” Elara observes.

There are no doors; the base of the pyramid is open to the surface, supported by columns of the strange black stone rather than comprised of solid walls. They walk into a large atrium, switching on their suit torches to penetrate the dark.

“It’s huge,” Elara gasps, shining both head and wrist-mounted torches up towards the ceiling. The pyramid is hollow, her beams of light unable to find a ceiling above them.

“Yes,” agrees the Doctor, more concerned with their immediate surroundings. Whatever witchcraft befuddled the shuttle’s sensors seems to be at work on his screwdriver as well. This place has all the makings of a trap. He catches Elara’s arm. “Stay together.”

They inch slowly forward, walking for five minutes before their torches illuminate anything other than flat black floor stone. Eventually they come to a pit, stairs dipping down into a dark well.

“Do we go down?”

A growing part of him wants to say no. The Sphere is a uniform surface; there have been no pits or dimples anywhere else that they have seen. He has a horrible feeling that this well is a door, and not one he is desperately keen to see opened.

“Unfortunately.”

Her fingers stray to the gun strapped to her leg. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Me too.”

He takes a step anyway, then another and another. It takes five minutes more to reach the bottom. Eighty micro sieverts are counted in the corner of his eye, a new and frightening way of measuring time.

At the bottom of the stairs is indeed a door; an archway of stone blocked with another large, flat piece. He touches a gloved hand to it, seemingly solid.

“Knock, knock?” he suggests.

The door slides open beneath his fingers.

“Who’s there?” asks Alya.


	12. The Walled Garden

There is dim light on the other side, greenish tinged. It emanates from the far wall where a curious glowing schematic crawls across the black stones. It changes as he looks at it; new connections forged between components, old pathways disappearing. It take a moment for his eyes to adjust to that light, to be able to see Alya properly in the gloom.

The ruin of the young girl’s face makes an immediate top-ten entry into his personal league-table of 'most horrible sights'. Extensive augmentations have been crudely inserted into her skull, no attempt made to cover their presence. Her remaining flesh is raw, oozing at the join between synthetic and skin. The overloading of her cranium makes her eyes bulge, red-veined and watering. Her amputated arm has been replaced by a curious spike. Two tiny connecting antennae click-clack back and forth across the point. It reminds him of a pair of pincers.

“I’m the Doctor,” he says, hiding his revulsion. “Who’re you?”

The girl shrugs lopsidedly. “You can call me Alya.”

“That’s not what I asked, though,” he replies lightly. From the corner of his eye he sees Elara’s knuckles whiten; she clutches the holster of her gun tighter.

Alya smiles thinly. The pincers snip-snap as she considers her words. “Why are you here?”

“Funnily enough, we were going to ask you the same question.”

“Rescue mission,” she says baldly, “I came to rescue those that have been imprisoned here for a very long time.”

“Oh, I see. How did you find out about them?”

She purses her lips. Click-clack go the antennae. “Very well, Doctor. I can see you are unconvinced that Alya herself would make this journey alone. Shall we end this pointless conversation before you die from radiation sickness? My true name is unpronounceable by your tongues so I will suggest a title, like yours, that you may refer to me by.

“I am the Emissary, the First One, the Free. I set out from this place a long time ago in the hope of freeing my brothers and sisters from the millennia of torture they have endured in this wretched prison. In all that time only one, only Alya, has possessed the skill and the willingness to achieve this. We’re close now, very close, to opening the Door. So, if you would return to your ship in orbit you might just survive long enough to witness the rebirth of the Thousand Mouths.”

Green light plays back and forth as he considers her words, the flare of a new connection forged on the wall.

“Skill and the willingness?”

“Yes.”

“Alya wanted to come here. To do _this_ to herself-” He indicates the surgical alterations. “-all in order to help you?”

“She wished to help free us from our prison.”

“Again, that’s not exactly what I asked. Is it?”

The Emissary rolls its hideous eyes, an obscene parody of the teenaged form it has come to occupy. “Doctor, this conversation is beginning to get very tiresome. I would ask that you leave now so we can complete the work with no distraction.”

“Why? What’s the problem?”

She almost snarls, lip curling before she re-gains control of what is left of Alya’s face. “Nothing that time and patient thought cannot solve.”

“Well, maybe I can help? I can see that you’re trying to manually bypass the guardian systems.” He waves a hand at the evolving schematic. “Nanocytic de-programmers, very clever. Shame the synthetic antibodies are keeping you well away from any core functions.”

The Emissary’s eyes narrow, an almost hungry expression. “You can understand the Sign of the Door.”

“Yes. Let Alya go from here and I promise I will try to help you.”

She tilts her head, clearly considering his request. Her remaining hand extends out towards him. He touches his gloved fingers against her bare palm.

He is prepared for a mental assault, but still cries out in pain as the Emissary’s consciousness brushes against his. The doors of his mind are thrown open. He is lost for a moment in the overwhelming jumble of unpleasant memories she throws at him. He blinks tears from his eyes and finds he is on his knees before her.

Elara’s weapon is un-holstered in a second and trained on the Emissary. “Stop hurting him. Now!”

“I’m sorry Doctor,” the girl says, ignoring the soldier. “You are exceptional. But not as exceptional as Alya is. _She_ is the key to getting past the Guardian.” She turns away from them, back to the Sign of the Door. “Go back to your ship.”  

He gasps for breath, the uninvited presence behind his eyes still stinging like a scald. His mental defences have never felt so inadequate. Yet a door, once opened, can be stepped through in either direction. He can’t quite remember who said those words to him, a long time ago. It doesn’t matter now. The fact remains.

“She’s not going to help you,” he rasps.

The Emissary’s head twitches on her neck, another barely controlled snarl. “Go _away_ , Doctor,” she hisses. “Go away now.”

He shakes his head. “No.”

The Emissary roars in frustration, turning back to face him. “You dare to defy _me_?” She opens her human hand, green fire crackling into being in her palm. An energy weapon of some kind, he supposes, before the lightning strikes and every nerve is suddenly aflame. He screams.

Elara does not hesitate to open fire; three precise and controlled shots aimed right at the Emissary’s head. Her rounds impact harmlessly on a personal shield, although in raising the barrier the Emissary is forced to stop her attack on the Doctor.

“Doctor?”

“I’m fine,” he lies, blood beginning to drip from his nose. “I’ve had worse.”

“I doubt it,” snaps the Emissary.

He shrugs. “You can’t strike again without lowering your shield.”

“Oh? And is your little bodyguard really going to kill me, after you’ve travelled all this way to save _precious_ little Alya?”

“Yes,” replies Elara calmly. “If you touch him again, you can count on it.”

He cannot wipe his nose inside the helmet; blood is now running down his chin. The Emissary stares, nonplussed. “What is it that you _want_?”

His own lip is curling now. “Was I somehow unclear? Alya. I’m not leaving here without her.”

“And I cannot open this Door without her. It appears we are at an impasse, Doctor. For the next half an hour at least. Then I imagine you’ll both be rather busy with dying horribly. ”

“And how long will you last, Emissary? You might have modified that human body you’re wearing, but how long are you prepared to stare at a locked Door? Will you sit and wait forever, knowing the key to unlocking it is within that stolen mind but hidden from you?”

“I _will_ break her.”

“No,” he says, “You were right. She’s exceptional. You brushed aside my mental defences like they were made of paper, but Alya’s built _walls_. I saw them, when you were busy rooting through my memories. Walls you cannot climb, walls you cannot break.”

The Emissary consider her options. “You are not enough,” she says simply, “You cannot open the Door either. There is no trade to be made.”

“Then let me in,” he says, “Let me go to Alya.”

The Emissary laughs hollowly. “And you’ll convince her to give up the solution and set the Thousand Mouths free? I doubt it.”

“No, I’ll convince her to give up the solution so that you will let _her_ go free.”

“Doctor,” breathes Elara, “We can’t possibly _trust_ that she will let Alya go once she has the information she needs.”

“I know,” he says, “But she needs a physical connection with me to forge the psychic link. No energy shielding. If she won’t let Alya go, when the time comes you can kill them both.”

 “And you alongside us,” remarks the Emissary sourly.

“Yes,” he agrees.  It’s a gamble he’s willing to make.

He waits, lit by the pulsating green glow of the Sign of the Door. He can hear Elara breathing hard over their comm-link as she makes their decision.

“Well?” says the Emissary.

* * *

He blinks.

The roses are just beginning to bloom. He bends to better look at the nascent flowers, deep and purplish red. The garden is ringed by a high wall, the brickwork covered by a complicated network of creeping green vines. He stands, takes a few faltering steps. Gravel crunches beneath his shoes.

He can’t quite suppress the nagging feeling he was somewhere else, just moments ago. Sunlight, warm on his face, and sweet birdsong. It feels wrong.

“You’re not like the others,” says a voice. Young, female. He turns to see Alya Antares staring fiercely at him. She is very tall, almost eye-to-eye with him, with the pinched gangling look of someone who has done a lot of growing in a short space of time.

“No,” he agrees, “I’m not.” The question of _which_ others seems unnecessary at this point.

She cocks her head. “How did you make the roses bloom?”

“I didn’t.”

She bites her lip. “No, you must have. Nothing changes in the garden.”

He considers this for a moment, watching a fat bumblebee struggle from flower to flower. “Where _are_ we?”

“This is where I live now,” she says simply.

“Oh. Well, it’s very nice. Thank you for letting me visit.”

“I didn’t,” she says, and there’s a brittle edge to her voice, “You just appeared here.”

“Sorry about that,” he says, and means it, “It’s a bad habit. I can go, if you like.”

“Go where?”

He indicates the garden gate, wrought iron amongst the red brick. “Outside.”

“You really _are_ different.” She indicates a table and chairs set up in the middle of the ornamental beds. “Would you care for some tea?”

“Yes, thank you. I’m parched actually.”

“I thought you might be.”

He takes the offered seat, the metal warm under his hands from the sun. She pours tea into delicate china cups. He admires the TARDIS blue pattern on his before adding milk and several sugar lumps. He only stops adding sugar when he notices she is staring.

“You like it sweet, then?”

“Mmm,” he says, raising the cup to his lips. There is something in her expression, a hunger perhaps, that he can remember…

He puts down the undrunk cup, smacking his lips for good measure. “Lovely tea.”

“Thank you. A House speciality.”

“Yes, very floral. With just a hint of garlic, I thought.”

She meets his gaze unflinchingly. “Really?”

“The arsenic you’ve put in there, I should imagine.”

Her face does not flicker, but he thinks her smile tightens somewhat. She sits back in her chair. “I wondered if that would stop working.”

“Alya, I’m not working for the Emissary.”

“Yes. Funnily enough you’re not the _first_ visitor to say that.”

“The others that came through... They weren’t strangers though, were they?”

“No,” she says, the brittle edge back in her voice. “You used friends. Servants. People I care about. People I trust.”

“You poisoned all of them.” If Clara were here she’d probably punch him about now, for seeming rather more impressed than horrified.

Alya shrugs. “If they were _really_ from House Scorpii they’d have known not to trust my tea.”

His mouth twitches. “I can see your father was right about you.” He holds out his hand. “I’m the Doctor.”

She takes his proffered limb and shakes it; her palm smooth and grip strong. An illusion, of course. In reality that hand is gone, replaced by a spike. He wonders if she knows; how long she has been living behind these garden walls quietly despatching agents of the Emissary.

“You’ve visited Serpentis then, Doctor?”

“No,” he says, “Well, yes, actually. But a long time before you were born. I was talking about your real father. Shaula Antares.”

He is impressed at her lack of reaction. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Doctor. My father is Lord Vyperion of Serpentis. I am merely a ward of Scorpii, and Shuala Antares my faithful man-servant.”

He sighs. “Right. Of course.” An inkling of how frustrating it is going to be to try and convince Alya of his intentions settles upon him. “Alya, I don’t know how much you remember of how you came to be here. How much you know about where you are in the real world right now. But I don’t have a lot of time.”

“Yes, I’m rather counting on it. The nanocytes the Kessel doctor installed are doing an excellent job of repairing the radiation damage, but they’re not infallible. Sooner or later my body is going to die. And you’re going to die with me.”

Her words turn his stomach to lead. “You know everything.” He can’t imagine the pain, the horror of watching her own mutilation unfold and being unable to so much as scream about it.

“You made me watch, remember? As I killed my m−my own carers. As you ordered me cut up into little pieces.”

Her stutter makes him pause. Her father’s words, spoken what seems like an age ago over the coffee table at Deresta IV, chime in his memory: _“Whoever did it killed the others who knew what she really was.”_

He blinks. “The Emissary killed your mother, didn't it? Through you.”

She blanches and he knows his hypothesis is correct. “You’ve killed a lot of people through me in the last few weeks.”

He is quiet for a long moment, considering his options. “Alya, I am not the Emissary. I am the Doctor, and I came here to find out the truth. Who are the Thousand Mouths? Why does the Emissary want them freed?”

She sighs, and when she finally speaks her words seem to come from a long way away. “I don’t know exactly. They were imprisoned a long time ago. I thought perhaps it was unjust; I said that I wanted to help. But now… They will not negotiate, Doctor, they will not broker peace. They merely consume. What was done to me by their Emissary is their warning. They will devour galaxies if that is their desire and there will be no stopping them.”

“But they need you to open their Door for them.”

“Yes. They’ve been looking for someone like me for a long time. The consciousness of the Emissary has been locked up in that blasted tiara for centuries, waiting for the right head to sit beneath it. And I was vain and _stupid_ enough to try it on.”

“Alya, as stupidity goes, trying on a tiara is fairly innocuous.”

“It was unprofessional,” she bristles, “And if I hadn’t done it…”

“Someone else would be here,” he suggests. “Would you wish this upon them?”

She gives him a dark look. “I wouldn’t wish this on anybody.”

“No, I thought not. You’re not going to open their Door, are you?”

“No. I’ll die first.”

“I know. The trouble is, I’ve psychically linked with you through the Emissary to get to the bottom of all of this. And to try and get you out of this mess, if that’s possible. If you die, we all go with you. I don’t mind dying. I mean, Clara will probably be cross about it, and I’ll have set a new personal record for carelessness with this regeneration… but there’s someone else waiting back there with my body. I think she’s pudding-brained enough to stand guard over it until it’s too late for her. And I like to think I’m not the sort of man that would invite someone along with me just to die. Not deliberately, anyway.”

“What in the name of the Gods are you talking about?” Her tone is somewhere between confusion and anger; so strongly does she remind him of Clara his hearts twist in his chest.

“Your choice,” he says, “You can come with me through that gate and try to get out of here alive. If it doesn’t work you can go back to your original plan of dying nobly. But if it does, your father – your _real_ father, that is – is in orbit with the _Wray_ and would very much like to take you home.”

“If this is a trap...”

“I’m not an aspect of the Emissary, Alya. I do not… devour. I try to make things better.” He looks at the garden again, at the unfurling roses, and smiles as understanding dawns. “That’s why your flowers have opened. Look.” He points, and the purple flowers respond to his call, blooming before their eyes.

“ _Rosa malo lupo_ ,” Alya says, entranced. “The door-keeper’s rose. They were my mother’s favourite.”

“Yes, I’ve always rather liked them myself.”


	13. First Test

There is snow underfoot again. Alya's breath steams in the air. "Where  _are_  we?" Christmas lights twinkle overhead, strung from home to home. The church bell tolls; once, twice, and then falls silent. "Doctor?"

He is ashamed to find his eyes are stinging. "Trenzalore," he says, finally.

Alya spins on her heel, taking in the picture-postcard prettiness of the town, smiling. "It's beautiful. Is this where you live?"

He laughs bitterly. The place he spent nine hundred years defending, the longest he has ever stayed in one place. And still he returns here, almost every time he closes tired eyes. "I think that's one way of putting it."

"Why did we come here, then?"

"A good question."

He turns, half hoping to step back through the doorway between this world and Alya's garden. Unsurprisingly it has disappeared. The main street of the town of Christmas runs all the way to his clock-tower behind them instead. Almost unbidden his feet start to move, walking the familiar road home.

"None of this is right," he says, more to himself than the girl that hurries alongside him. "That tower, for a start. I blew the top off defending this place from the Daleks." He blinks. "Of course. Of course! Stupid Doctor!"

"What are you talking about? Doctor, what-?"

"Why we came here. That's what you asked, wasn't it? That's why." He points at the miraculously restored tower.

"I don't understand." She is running now to keep up with him, as he strides up the hill.

"The Emissary will not negotiate, is that right?"

"Yes. Absolutely."

"Then the only way to beat it is to do just that.  _Beat it_. We're going to have to drive it out of your mind. Inch by inch."

"So?"

"So, it knows that too. That's why it let me in. It doesn't think I can convince you to give up the key to that Door; it just thinks I'll tempt you out of that garden somewhere it can attack you more easily."

Alya stops as suddenly as if she has walked into a door. "But Doctor," she gasps, horror-struck, "That's  _exactly_  what you've done!" She stumbles backwards. "Oh no," she breathes. "Oh no. I have to find the door, the door back…" She is hyperventilating, waving her hands in the air as if she can will a portal to safety to simply appear in front of her.

"Alya," he snaps, "No it  _hasn't_. Listen to me! Nine hundred years. Half my life. I defended this town against Daleks and Angels, Cybermen and Sontarans.  _That's_ why we're here. Because this place I can keep safe."

"Oh, Doctor. " She puts down her hands, but her eyes are still wide with fear. "I hope to the Gods you're right."

"Yeah, me too." He holds out his hand. "Come on. We need to get inside. It won't be long."

"Long before what?"

He bares his teeth; a rictus that might be called a smile, but only by sharks. "Before it attacks, of course."

* * *

 "Is this where you actually  _lived_?" she asks, sounding doubtful. She picks up a discarded teacup and blows sawdust from the bowl.

"Yes," he replies, slightly huffily. "What's wrong with it?"

She opens his kettle and a set of whiskers poke out; the oil-drop eyes of a surprised mouse blink up at them. She shudders, replacing the kettle. "You really have to ask?"

"Humph. Well, I suppose it could do with a bit of dusting." He is rooting through some of his discarded papers, more concerned with finding his defensive creations mixed in amongst the children's toys and carvings.

"A bit!" she laughs. She considers the kettle-nest for a moment, head on one side. There is a slight  _pop_  and a sleeker duplicate appears; black and beautifully rounded. He recognises it as an element of the ceremonial tea service of House Scorpii.

"How did you do that?"

She shrugs. "This isn't a  _real_  place, is it? Like my garden." She closes her eyes to better focus, and two matching teacups appear. Picking up the kettle she pours them steaming hot tea. "Go on Doctor," she says, offering him a cup. "This one isn't poisoned, I promise."

He risks a sip, scalding and sweet. "If you can dream it you can create it?"

"I guess so."

"Let's hope our imagination is better, then." He draws in a deep breath.  _I know I left the sonic screwdriver under that pile of papers_ , he tells himself. When he picks up the drawings it is indeed lying on the table top, as if it has always been there.

He takes it in hand, points it at the central space of the cluttered workshop. A schematic appears in the air, a hologram, outlining the town of Christmas and its defensive perimeter in electric blue. As they look the line delimiting the outer bounds of the town begins to flash red.

"What does that mean?" she asks nervously; he suspects she already knows the answer.

"Company."

"What do we do?"

"Well, Christmas is a small town with old fashioned values. We go out and say hello, of course."

She follows him at a run, out onto the snowy streets. The alarm is sounding now, one that once called the townspeople to man the defences or stay out of sight, whatever their choice. This time Christmas is empty; no one runs to join them as they race towards the perimeter.

He skids to a halt, slipping on the ice, as they reach the last homely house on the high street. He throws out a hand to catch himself, his palm tearing on the ice and stones. Standing in the middle of the road are three Weeping Angels.

"Odd place for statues," Alya breathes.

"They're not just statues." He struggles to his feet, wiping his bleeding palm on his jacket, without looking down.

"Yes, I'd guessed that part."

"Don't take your eyes off them. Don't even blink."

"Why?" she asks, even as she complies with the rasped instruction.

"Because blink and you're dead. As long as we keep looking at them, they can't move."

"Right! Not exactly a long term solution though, is it?"

The boom of an explosion cuts off his reply. He cannot help the momentary distraction, flinching, glancing right to see a house on the edge of the town suddenly engulfed in roaring flames. Alya turns in horror. It is enough time for the leading Angel to cross the distance between them; stone fingers close around the sleeve of his coat before he snaps his head back.

"What was that?!"

"Doesn't matter!" he yelps, eye to eye now with the terrible, snarling face. "One problem at a time." He swallows.  _If I can dream it, I can create it._ "I want you to go into the house just there. It's a... a storehouse," he lies. "Inside there's a fresh delivery of-of mirrors. Bring one out here."

He cannot turn to see if she is following his instruction, watering eyes straining to keep all three Angels in his field of vision. He hears her footsteps crunch on the snow, however, and the creak of the door. The silence that follows is agony, filled with the crackle of the burning house. After a few moments he hears her again, clearly struggling to drag something bulky.

"You found the mirrors?"

"Yes!" she gasps, "Big full length ones. I assume we put them in front of the Angels?"

"Clever girl," he agrees, not quite able to supress his sigh of relief. When the mirrors are in place he tears his sleeve free. "Now, let's go see about that explosion."

The house is already a charred shell by the time they reach the scene, as is the Cyberman that apparently started the immolation. Its chest plate is ruptured by laser fire, eyes dark.

"Automated defence system?" asks Alya, sounding hopeful.

"Hold onto that thought," he suggests.

He runs a hand over the damaged soldier, trying to think; to understand; who or what else he could have bought to this place to help fight?

"DOC-TOR."

Alya gasps at the unmistakable cracked voice of the Dalek. He closes his eyes for a brief, despairing moment before turning to face his nemeses. There are twelve of them, gliding towards him down the snow-dusted street, grotesque intrusions on a Christmas card.

"DOCTOR!" screams the first, and the others take up the cry, voices echoing horribly. "DOCTOR! DOCTOR! EXTERMINATE THE DOCTOR!"

"Stop right there!" he shouts, pointing the screwdriver at them, for all the good it will do. "Any further forward and I will blow each and every Dalek here back to Skaro."

"HOW? DOCTOR? HOW?" chatters the lead Dalek, once again echoed by the terrible chorus.

He tries to think through the fog of terror. How,  _how_  might he destroy twelve Daleks with one clever trick. If he'd had time to plan this encounter, to meet them prepared, what might he have done?

"Don't come any closer," he says.

They're too close for explosives, too well shielded for bullets. A blast from orbit might do it, but would probably destroy himself, and Alya along with him. Transmatting them elsewhere is out, thanks to those shields again. A critical software failure, perhaps, but how would he upload a virus using nothing more than the sonic screwdriver? Against their firewalls it would take hours, not seconds.

The Daleks judder back and forth, almost as if they are excited by their victory. The movement strikes him as odd; never before has he seen them shiver like this in anticipation of a kill.

"YOU LOSE, DOCTOR," they say, their words overlapping, clamouring in his head. YOU LOSE. LOSE DOCTOR. LOSE. LOSE. YOU LOSE.

"I don't think so," says a voice on the air.

Elara shimmers into existence behind the wall of Daleks, pistol steady in her hand; aim true. She is firing before they even begin to spin, her Kessel laser-rounds passing straight through their shielding and rending their armour. Just as it was designed to do. Their gloating turns to an awful screaming, until the last of the twelve explodes in a mess of sparks and organic gloop. Silence falls.

"How?" he says, as Elara holsters the pistol. "How can you be here?"

"The Emissary was hurting you." She points. "Your hand. My sensors could see the damage even through your radiation suit."

"But you're not a telepath. How did you join the psychic link?"

She smiles sadly. "Augmented too, remember? I hacked Alya's data-spike. Found myself here about the same time that Cyberman did."

He stares at her. Relief and gratitude for her timely rescue compete with his anger, at her stupidity for joining them in this hideous fantasy world.

"Thank you," says Alya, saving him the trouble. She bows neatly. "We owe you a great debt."

"It was my honour," Elara replies, stiffly formal. "Is that it, then? Did we win?"

The Doctor shakes his head. "We're still here. I think we won the battle, perhaps, but not the war."

"What now then?" asks Alya.

"Fortify a safe-house," answers the solider, "That old clock tower looks like a good−"

"Yes, yes, we had managed to work that one out for ourselves," he replies, testily


	14. Trust Me

"First tour out," says Elara, "They always used to say: 'it's the waiting that's the worst part.'" She is chopping vegetables at his work table, imagined into being by Alya, who seems curiously determined to prepare them some sort of meal. "But you know what? The bits when the Daleks  _aren't_  there are actually the best bits. I could have waited a long time for them. The rest of my life would have been nice."

Alya giggles at this, tipping food into a sizzling pan. He's already pointed out the pointlessness of their activity. When none of the food is even real it seems ridiculous to him to not simply imagine a sumptuous banquet, ready for the eating. Elara hissed in response to this: "Because it's something to  _do_ , idiot," and he hasn't spoken again since. He is lying on his bed instead, trying to think. Their total ignorance of his sulk is beginning to get boring, however.

"Why do you think we're alone here?" he asks.

 _Chop, chop, chop_  goes Alya's sharp little knife on the wooden table top. "What do you mean?"

"There was a whole town of people here. Several whole town's worth, actually, from start to finish. I remember at least  _some_  of them. So why aren't they here?"

Elara shrugs. "Because here isn't real. The only people really here are us."

"Right, yes. Logical. But then why three Angels? Why twelve Daleks?"

Elara shakes her head. "I don't know. But, Doctor, there was something not quite right about those Daleks. They'd never just…  _line up_  like that. It made them vulnerable."

"No. They don't normally get all overexcited at the thought of killing, either. That's not the Dalek way."

"What do you mean? They love killing!"

"No, I mean… I mean, yes, they do. But they get it  _done_. They might gloat about it first, or shriek out their intention just before they fire a shot, but they don't  _wobble about_  at the thought of victory."

Alya puts down her knife and adds the final ingredients to the pan. "So they weren't Daleks, then. They were the Emissary making itself  _look_  like Daleks."

"Struggling to control that many bodies, too," he adds. "That's why they were all lined up. Why they all just echoed the voice of their leader."

"Does that help us?" asks Elara, ever the tactical thinker.

He shrugs. "Possibly. It means there's probably an upper limit on how many enemies it can throw at us at once. And there's more of us, so perhaps we could outnumber it with imagined allies."

"I think that's why it's gone quiet," says Alya, "It's trying to think of a way round that. Keeping out of the way so we can't counterattack"

Cheerless as her assessment is, he thinks she's probably right. He lies back on his pillow, letting their voices wash over him again as they resume their inane chatter. He wonders what would happen now if he tried to sleep. Would he still find himself here, Trenzalore curled around Trenzalore, an inescapable prison?

He closes his eyes.

* * *

_He is lying on the solar loungers back at the Deresta IV Station. Clara is watching him, dangling her feet. He watches her shoes swing back and forth glassily._

_"This is a dream."_

_"Yeah," she agrees, "But it's a_ good _one."_

_"What makes you say that?"_

_"Nice view, warm temperature?" she suggests. "Good company."_

_He smiles at that, just a little. "I suppose."_

_"You have to get out of there, you know."_

_He is confused. "Out of where?"_

_"Where you are now."_

_He shrugs. "I'll try my best."_

_"No, I mean after this. Once you've rescued Elara and Alya." She smiles at his frown. "Yeah, I know about them. I'm you, remember? This is a dream."_

_"Well, I'm not exactly_ trying−"

_"Oh, shut up Doctor. You've lived there long enough. It's time to move on."_

_He chuckles. "You always think you know what's best for me, don't you?"_

_"Yep," she affirms, "Because I do. Even when I'm just a dream. Now go. And…_ try _not to do anything too stupidly heroic to save the day."_

_"I promise nothing," he says._

* * *

He opens his eyes. Elara and Alya are asleep on neat military bedrolls, the former snoring lightly. He swings his legs off his bed and moves to investigate their stew pan. To his surprise they have left him a portion, cold leftovers that taste unexpectedly good. He wonders, spoon in mouth, if that is the result of his own imagination or theirs.

_Bleep-bleep._

His reverie is cut off by the soft noise. Alya sleeps on, but Elara cracks an eye. "What's that?"

"Uh, breach of the interstellar perimeter," he says, confused. "The Papal mainframe maintained quarantine around the planet but I kept an eye out, just in case."

"But what does it  _mean_?"

"I have no idea."

She sighs. "I take it Trenzalore had observation satellites in orbit?"

It didn't, but Elara doesn't need to know that. Like Alya's mirrors, her imagination should be enough to will them into being here. "A small number."

"Right." She closes her eyes briefly, concentrated inward. "Okay, I can pick up two with my internal sensors. Can you patch the feed through?"

He points with his screwdriver in reply. Elara blinks and the live feed from her imagined satellites replaces the outline of the town of Christmas in the centre of the workshop.

"What is that?" asks Alya, voice cracked with sleep. The flickering light of the changing display has woken her.

"I'm… not sure," replies Elara. "I've not seen a distortion effect like that before."

"I have," he says grimly. "It's the Dalek fleet. Shielded." A curious, leaden dread is settling upon him. He should have known, really; should have suspected that  _one_  death would never be enough for this place.

"What do we do then?"

He shakes his head. " _We_  do nothing.  _I_ know only one solution to this."

"You held them off before?"

He nods. "Yes. Alya, you're going to stay here. Promise me you will." In his mind's ear he can hear his former self, the same words.

"No," she says, just as stubborn as Clara was. "What are you planning to do?"

He sighs. "Elara's going to shoot me and trigger a regeneration. I'll use the energy from that to attack the Dalek ships."

"Doctor, no," says Elara sharply. "Your palm… What happens to you here in the dream world happens to you in the real world too. You'll die."

"Regenerate," he maintains doggedly. "It'll work just like last time. Trust me."

"No," says Alya, throwing off her woollen blanket and standing. "I won't let you do it. There's got to be another way."

"I'm all ears," he snaps back, "But I don't think−"

"Then let  _me_  think," she says commandingly. His mouth drops open at the shock of someone else stepping into his shoes as group leader so easily. She stares at the rippling distortion on the screen, frowning in concentration. "Right." Her expression has cleared, she is almost  _smiling_. She holds out her hands. "Trust  _me_ , Doctor. You too Elara. Take my hand and trust."

He holds her steady gaze for a second, and then obediently folds his fingers over her outstretched palm.

For a second he is everywhere and nowhere, lost in time and space. The feeling is unbearable for a Time Lord; cut off from the ebbing flow of the river that carries them all, out and away from a moment of sudden expansion. He gasps, and almost cries out as it comes crashing back just as suddenly; a tidal wave of all that was and will be.

He is standing on the bridge of the Dalek ship−

He is standing on the bridge of the Dalek ship−

He is standing on the bridge of the Dalek ship−

He swallows, nauseous.

Swallows.

Nauseous.

Swallows.

There are a hundred copies of himself, like echoes or reflections. When he turns his head a kaleidoscopic composite from all those many pairs of eyes shifts hazily. He cannot make sense of it all; his head feels like it is splitting, ready to burst like an overfull balloon. He would scream, but he can't figure out which mouth to open.

"Do you know what this is?" says Alya, over and over, on every bridge of every ship in the fleet. She indicates the device in her hands.

"A THERMO-NUCLEAR DETONATOR," reply Daleks; here, there, everywhere.

"Correct," says Alya, in perfect synchrony. For the first time he understands why the Emissary rejected him as a worthy replacement in its quest to open the Door. "I'm going to set it off now. It's time for you to leave."

"YOU WILL DI-ie," stutter the Daleks. Something strange is happening to them, fritzing like a poor quality holoprojector. The majority disappear. In the place of their commander, on every ship, stands something like a woman. A girl in outline, ephemeral and almost translucent. She has a data-spike for an arm and a curious crown emerging from her skull. Alya, he realises, as she appears in the real world. As he watches the augmented elements become clearer; more real. In contrast, the human Alya's amputated hand is draining of colour, of form, becoming a ghostlike wisp.

"No," says the girl at his side, many times over. Her voice is that of the Metatron, speaking absolute truth. Through his blossoming agony he believes her utterly. " _You're_  going to die. Me and my friends? We're going to be just fine."

"No," says the Emissary, "That's not how it works."

"Yes it is," Alya answers benignly, "Because here is  _me_. You came in here without invitation. And now I'm kicking you out." She twists the device in her hands. "You made me  _think_  it was impossible." She nods to the Doctor and Elara. "But they showed me you were lying. Goodbye, Emissary."

"No!" it shrieks, "No, please!"

It is too late. The bomb in her hands explodes. For a long time there is only light and sound, beyond description or imagination.

Then everything goes dark.


	15. How It Ends

He is aware of a strange pulsing, throbbing in time with his aching head. Like the aura of a migraine, it beats away in the top right corner of his head.

_No_ , he thinks, muzzily. _Not my head. Something else._

It takes him a while to get traction on the concept. Eventually he realises the pulse is a light, behind closed eyelids, flashing steadily over his right eye.

_Now, what could that mean?_

He suspects nothing good. Some tiny inner core of Doctor is screaming at the dullard self currently in control. But he aches, all over, like he’s been kicked by a horse, and feels sick to boot. Curling up back to sleep feels like the sensible option.

The light, however, refuses to go away. He wonders what it can be. Sleep won’t come back when there’s an unsolved puzzle so near at hand. He opens his eyes.

He is lying on his side. The beam of his head torch is a shining ray across the dark pit, picked out by motes of dust in the air. The red light is the warning indicator on the rad-suit’s visual display, suggesting his exposure has exceeded toxic levels. Something like adrenalin trills in his veins at last, stripping away the haze. He swears softly under his breath, guttural Anglo-Saxon rather than anything Gallifreyan. Clara’s favourite obscenity, deployed only in choice circumstances of almost certain death. A strange talisman, but an effective one.  He forces himself to his feet, legs wobbling alarmingly.

Elara and Alya lie sprawled on the ground behind him. A thin cable still runs from the former’s data-port, out from under her collar bone, and into the spike that replaces Alya’s arm. Elara has torn a hole in her radiation suit to make a connection. He tugs the end out from the augmentation, and the cable winds sinuously back into Elara’s chest, a bizarre and grotesque spectacle. _Elara first_ , he decides, on the basis her suit is badly compromised. He shakes her, hoping to wake her, but she is deeply unconscious. Or worse.

Swinging her over his shoulder, he almost falls over. _Bad_ , he thinks. He is generally keen to avoid heavy lifting, but on the occasions it becomes necessary, Time Lord robustness normally compensates for his slender build. Radiation sickness has sapped his strength. Stars are winking on and off in his vision by the time he reaches the shuttle and sets her down inside. For a moment he contemplates taking off without Alya; _better to save one than none at all_. Something twists in his stomach at that thought, a nausea he doesn’t think has anything to do with gamma rays. He turns back to the pyramid for one final time.

Alya stirs when he turns her over. One eye is a bloody mess of ruptured vessels; the other finds his face behind the mask. “No,” she says.

“No?”

“Leave me here,” she pleads weakly, “Just go.”

“Why would I do that?” She is smaller than Elara. He scoops her up like a child in his arms.

“I don’t want to… survive.”

It takes him a moment to gulp down enough air to walk and talk. “Stupid,” he manages. A few steps on he finds a question. “Why?”

“Don’t want to live like this,” she breathes.

He considers her position as he struggles to put one foot in front of the other. Her mutilation is irreversible, of course, but a good surgeon will be able to undo much of the cosmetic damage. Much like Elara, her synthetic parts can be made beautiful as well as functional. “You won’t _have_ to live like this,” he offers.

She sobs. “It’s not about arm. Or my… my face. Doctor, I killed people. A lot of people. People I care about. My moth-”

“No,” he snaps, “No, you didn’t.”

“It used my mouth, my hands. She died… and she thought it was me that killed her.” Tears stream down her ruined face. “Can you imagine what that’s like?”

They have reached the edge of the pyramid, and step out under the roiling sky. Purplish lightning crackles overhead; the boom of thunder so loud it rattles in his chest.

“I don’t have to.”

“Don’t have to what?”

“Imagine what that’s like. I know. Because I did kill my mother. And all the rest of my people. At least that’s what I thought, for a very long time. And I didn’t do it because some monster in my head stole my voice. I did it because I thought I was _right._ If I can learn to live with _that_ , Alya, so can you.”

She makes no reply, her distorted head lolling in his arms. He staggers on.

The nausea is worse now, bile rising in his throat. He hopes he doesn’t vomit inside his helmet. Once inside the shuttle he lays Alya down on the floor, next to Elara. The pilot’s chair seems to be a very long way away, each dragging footstep costing more effort than the last. Dropping into the padded seat, he tries to start the engines. A worrying stream of bleeps indicate the computer’s unhappiness at him doing so. He tries again. Still no response. 

They’re all going to die here, he realises. The thought doesn’t scare him as much as it should; the world dimming around the edges now. He is typing commands as fast as he can into the console, but shaking hands combined with strobing vision make him clumsy; error prone. No, no, no, returns the computer.

He retches, clawing at his helmet; pulling it off just in time to vomit copiously over the carpet. _Too late_ , he thinks. He’s died of radiation poisoning enough times to know what happens next. Doesn’t think, on this toxic surface, that there can be a regeneration.

This, apparently, is how it ends.

He sits back in his chair, eyes closing almost involuntarily, and thinks of Clara. If she were a Time Lord she might hear him, in the privacy of his own head, as he apologises to her. _Sorry, sorry, sorry_.  On the knife edge between life and death his memories seem to bleed into one another; the slowing beats of his hearts underscore the unspooling of past, present and future around him. He reminiscences, tells her all the places he hoped to still share with her. Until even this fades, and he fancies he is standing on the grey shore of a dark sea, one final journey ahead of him.

_Goodbye, Clara_ , he thinks, willing the words across time and space. It doesn’t seem quite enough somehow.

And after all, this really is his last chance to tell her-

* * *

In this room there are crisp clean sheets and the smell of disinfectant. In this room are machines, wired to his skin through sticky foam pads, which intermittently bleep. There is a small bedside table, on which a tele-communicator styled very much like a rotary telephone sits. His window looks out onto an empty corridor outside the door, which strikes him as odd. Muzzily, he eventually reasons that the window is for those on the outside that wish to look  _in_ , rather than for his entertainment. As if he is an exhibit in the zoo. The first time he wakes up, this is all he has time to notice.

The second time he wakes up, he realises he is heavily sedated and cannot lift his head. He counts forty-three insulating ceiling tiles covered in a randomised pattern of dots. The dots writhe and twist in his vision as he looks up; they can form anything he cares to imagine, if he stares hard enough. This passes for entertainment until the blackness claims him again.

The third time, more than his most basic faculties appear to make the journey back to consciousness with him. He is lying in a hospital bed, twenty-fifth century human by the nostalgic interior design, and very definitely not dead. Someone has taken his clothes away, and he is dressed in a backless hospital gown. It never ceases to intrigue him, why human medics across all of time and space always seem in a hurry to get to the backside. _It’s probably a species thing_ , he thinks, scratching idly at his wrist where a sticky pad connects him to a very confused sounding heart monitor.

The tele-comm rings. He regards it suspiciously for a moment before lifting the receiver. “Hello?”

“Doctor,” says Clara, sounding very relieved, “You’re awake.”

“Yes,” he agrees, “I am awake. But how do you know that? Where are you?”

There is a clunking sound of plastic against glass. Blinds drawn across the corridor window are pulled back. Clara is behind them, her own receiver in hand. She gives him a little wave. “Hello!”

“You look anxious,” he says, because it’s true. “Frowning like that puts years on you.”

There is a pause, as she switches mental gears from desperate relief to minor exacerbation. “Thanks,” she manages drily, “I take it you’re feeling better?”

“Much better. How long have I been here? And why are you out there on the ‘phone? Come in and speak to me.”

“A week, Doctor. And I can’t come in yet. They won’t let me.”

“Who won’t let you?”

“The medics. They say you’re still too radioactive to risk exposure.”

He digests this for a moment. “Oh.” Other thoughts marshal themselves; urgent and anxious. The kinds of thoughts the sedatives still clouding his senses have kept at bay. “Clara, what happened to the others?”

“They’re alive, they’re here too,” she reassures. “Alya’s in reconstructive surgery at the moment and they’re keeping Elara asleep for now. But they’re here, and they say they have a good chance.”

“Good,” he says. Another question rolls into view. “Where _is_ here?”

“Dawson Free Hospital, apparently. The TARDIS bought us here. I figured she knew what she was doing.”

He frowns. “The TARDIS? But-but what happened to the _Wray_? You didn’t-”

“No, Doctor, I didn’t,” she cuts in, before he can start shouting. “Multiple took another shuttle to get you back from the surface. He… he gave up a segment to do it.”

“What do you mean, _gave up_?”

She looks uncomfortable, cradling the receiver into her shoulder as she drops her voice. “Well, he said we shouldn’t think of it like dying, precisely, because they’re all him. But the segment that bought you back didn’t make it. He said… he said it didn’t suffer. That he can sort of _disconnect,_ and then they die instantly.”

Blue eyes find brown, through the glass. “Do you believe him?”

“I want to.” She swallows, and looks away. “He said he heard you, Doctor. Saying goodbye. That’s when he knew you were in trouble.”

Heat rises in his face, a sudden flush that takes him by surprise. _Side effects of the medication_ , he tells himself sternly; trying not to wonder if Multiple has told her who that goodbye was meant for.

“Well, it seems I was premature,” he manages, “I take it my appearance is still to your dissatisfaction?”

She smiles at that. “You’re still a grey haired stick insect,” she affirms, “But I’ve grown to like you that way.” She presses her empty palm against the window separating them, the closest she can manage to a comforting squeeze of his hand, probably.

He snorts. “Clara Oswald, I think you’ve gone soft.” He considers the proposition while he picks at the irritating adhesive on his wrist again. “It’s probably your advancing years,” he offers thoughtfully.

She chuckles. “Shut up. Or I’ll bump you back down to tolerate. And stop scratching at that! You should probably go back to sleep, anyway. The medics say it seems to do more for you than anything they can.”

“Sounds about right.” This probably explains why there is enough sedative coursing through his veins to fell an elephant; keeping him under while his Time Lord healing abilities fix damage done by the radiation. “I’m still not clear, though, how we got from the shuttle to here.”

She looks uncomfortable again. “Well, Multiple told us you were all dying, the Gate was deactivated, and the navigational computers were saying the nearest inhabited planet was three hundred years away. You told me to use the TARDIS as a lifeboat, so I did.”

“And she bought us here?”

“Look, I just stuck my fingers in the telepathic circuits and hoped, okay? Are you _cross_ with me?”

He lets her suffer for just a moment before answering. “No. In fact, under the circumstances… it’s entirely possible… that I what I _should_ say…”

“Say what? Doctor? Are you actually going to _thank_ me for saving your life?” she asks, incredulous.

He merely snores in response.


	16. Closing the Loop

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Elara limps into the room; pale; thinner than he remembers. “How’s she doing?”

“The surgery went well,” he replies, “But she hasn’t woken up yet.”

Between them sleeps Alya. The surgeons have restored the proportions of her skull. Newly grafted skin, already tufted with growing hair, hides a thin red scar running the circumference. Her left arm ends in a neat socket rather than a spike. Ready for a synthetic hand when she wakes.

“Will she?”

He shrugs. “I hope so.”

Elara takes a seat in the other chair at the young girl’s bedside, reaching inside her jerkin. “Multiple came to see me, before he left.”

“Yes.” He is still rather annoyed at being in a drugged stupor when Multiple came to his room; about having missed his own goodbye.  

“He left this for you.”

She offers him a neatly folded sheet of hospital paper. He opens it gently.

_Doctor,_

_We apologise for leaving before you are fully recovered. We must return to the Collective or risk all that these segments, including those lost, have learned._

_We urge you not to see this letter as goodbye but as an invitation. There is much we would discuss with you._

_12-0-07-12:42_

_There are stories that still need telling._

_Multiple._

He smiles, folding the letter back up carefully, before putting it into his own breast pocket.

“His goodbye to you?” asks Elara, clearly curious.

“An invitation. One I’m grateful to receive.” He coughs. “On that, uh, subject…”

He is interrupted by a soft sound from the girl on the bed. Alya’s eyelids flutter as she sighs, the first flicker of consciousness she has displayed since surgery.

“I should get her father,” says Elara, standing stiffly.

“Probably.” He takes Alya’s remaining hand in his, waiting until Elara has left the room before speaking again. “Alya, can you hear me?”

She opens her eyes at the sound of his voice. “Doctor?”

“I’m here. We all are. We survived, thanks to you.”

Her throat is working; her are words difficult to force out into the world past the lump in her throat. Perhaps it is lack of use that has taken her voice. He suspects otherwise.  

“I want you to remember that,” he continues, squeezing her hand tightly. “We all survived because of _you_.”

“Alya!”

Antares rushes to his daughter’s bedside; the Doctor letting go of her hand so her father can take his place. There is something in the fierce joy of the man’s expression, the fulfilment of his desperate hopes, which he suddenly cannot bear.

He needs to find Clara. It is time for them to leave.

Elara’s hand on his shoulder prevents his silent exit. “You’re going, aren’t you?” she whispers, over the happy weeping of the reunited family.

“I think my work here is done,” he replies. “You’re welcome to come with me. If that’s what you’d like.”

She swallows and then smiles, a little sadly. “Thank you Doctor. But I think… I think that’s not the reward you had in mind.”

She looks back, at the crying, mutilated girl and his mind draws the parallel. “You can help her,” he says. _Like you couldn’t help your sister._

“Yes,” she replies, “I think I can. It’s not easy… learning to live with the implants. But you can. Live, I mean.”

“Good. Take care, then. Of both of you. I shall be checking.”

She smiles again, the first _real_ smile he has ever seen crease her face. “I’d like that.”

“Me too. And, uh, if Alya ever finds uniting the warring Houses of the Chapter a little too dull… Tell her to give this number a ring, won’t you?” He passes her a slip of card from his trouser pocket, on which the digits of the TARDIS phone are scrawled.

Elara folds it up with solemn care, as if it is written on tissue paper.  “I will do,” she says. “And as for my thanks... I wish you pleasant dreams.” She shakes his hand, palming him a little silver case as she does so.

 _The dream patches._ “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

He can’t quite read the look on her face that follows; there are no more words to be exchanged, and yet-

-her arms suddenly encircle him. _Ah_ , he thinks, as she hugs him tightly. He pats her on the back, awkward but accepting of the sudden show of emotion.

“I’ll be seeing you,” he says.

* * *

“So,” says Clara, turning over the silver case of dream patches he has given to her for inspection. It’s a flimsy distraction for his moment of reconnection with the TARDIS; hands ghosting over the buttons and dials of her console to reassure himself that yes, they are both still here.

“So?”

“So, where to now?”

He gives her a shrewd look. “I thought you might want to go home.”

Her mouth quirks as she looks at her shoes, almost squirming. “Yeah. I suppose I probably should…”

“But…?”

She meets his eyes, grinning. “But there’s still another part to play yet, isn’t there?”

He shakes his head. “Clara, Clara, Clara…”

“What?”

“Put those patches away.”

She doesn’t yet move to do as he asks. “And?”

“And we’ll go and close the loop before I take you back, to the delights of dirty dishes and _endless_ marking.”

“Good answer.”

He inputs the co-ordinates as she files away the patches in his bureau, sending them spinning into the vortex.  The TARDIS lands with her usual sonorous _boom_ , and there is silence for a moment.

“Are you ready?” he checks.

“Absolutely,” she affirms.

“Good.”

He throws open the doors, letting in the crackle of gunfire; the acrid smell of las-cannon plasma. And a familiar voice.

“DELTA TEAM!” shouts Elara, a shadow in the smoking trenches outside. Her past, their present. “You hold your ground, do you hear me? You HOLD!”

He grabs hold of Clara’s hand for a moment, his smile a mirror to hers, ready to launch.

“Let’s go.”


End file.
